


Twisted Daydream

by PrincessJae92



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: 1994 Prison World (Vampire Diaries), F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-01 15:59:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessJae92/pseuds/PrincessJae92
Summary: Kai wanted her power and she just needed someone to understand. She was just a child when they met, how could she have known what was going to happen, how much horror loving him would bring. How could Kai have ever known that the girl he manipulated and controlled would ever be more than a magical reboot? He'd never done this before, never cared. Then again he'd never had someone fright for him before, and by god did she fight.





	1. Chapter 1

She doesn’t remember much from before, just crumbs of memory, like an old jigsaw with missing pieces. Then again, I suppose that’s a good thing; after all who’d want to remember their own parents trying to murder them in cold blood?

You see Annora was special even amongst her own kind; maybe too special… 

The Ternion’s were like so many other wiccan communities, fueled by traditions and their faith in the Coven; because without its protection and guidance they would be lost, alone, and it’s less than common for their breed stand alone and survive. 

The fragments Annora recalled weren’t all bad, she remembered her father’s bitter-sweet cologne and the smell of lilac and mud-pies.

Those few moments of joy seemed grayed now.

She was even beginning to forget what her parents looked like.

But she’d never forget what they did, no matter how hard she tried.

Perhaps she should be grateful, a man she never knew swept her away, he made a deal for her life.

A deal.

Like she was an overpriced stereo or something.

She was barely four years old for god’s sake and still trembling from the horror of the last few days when the car came to a stop at a large house that stood alone in a clearing, she reminded her of a dollhouse she used to have as the grey blue clouds and black sky hid her from the pretty stars… 

A woman stood at the porch steps with a horde of children, there to view her like a new aquarium attraction. 

All those eyes on her made Annora’s grip tighten onto the tattered rabbit already snuggled in tight to her chest. The scarlet haired child was surrounded by all these new faces that made a that feeling crawl up the back of her neck and itch to run as fast as her little legs would carry her.

She wanted to go home. 

She could though could she, not anymore; not after everything that had happened.

She jumped at the bang of the car door, the older man that stole her away offering her a halfhearted smile. 

They all stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do next… well that is until the eldest boy rolled his eyes with a groan to the rest of his family, shoving and stepping over his siblings “for god’s sake.”

Annora stood still staring up at the boy, he took a knee, blue eyes scanned her over, looking for something he couldn’t seem to place before voicing his disappointment “she doesn’t seem powerful, or dangerous!”

“Kai!” his mother scolded him from her perch to which he shrugged “what? you said she was dangerous, just seems like another annoying kid to me.”

Annora watched the boy as he spoke, his eyes never even turning to speak to the dark-haired woman glaring over to him. Joshua just seemed to watch the scene play out, paying close and cautious attention to his eldest boy. Kai watched girl, still looking for the horror his parents had promised, her green flecked blue orbs seemed to be engulfed by those dark blue pools staring down at her, so dark and cold… 

It all happened so much quicker than can be put into words, Joshua laid a hand on Annora’s shoulder, to offer her comfort, to break the trace but that was all it took; she flinched from Kai’s querying stare and Joshua’s innocent touch at the same moment as the lining trees burst into angry red flames and the car just behind the small group flew up into the air and exploded across the meadow like a scorching firework into the black night sky. 

Annora starts to gnaw on her bottom lip, she didn’t mean to, but now everyone was scurrying like rats to clean up her mess while the other children ran into the safety of their home in fear “Josette get Annora inside.”

At her father’s command Josette runs to the small child but before she has a chance Kai flashes her an almost tender smile “hey I’ll take the little fire starter in, you should go help dad.”  
She looks at her twin brother with skepticism “are you sure?”

“Yeah, besides it’s not like I have any magic, or you know, a fire truck… so what good would I be.” The way his voice turns, the mild tilt of his head, your heart would clench at the sight if you saw it. 

Not that it lasted longer than it took for Josette to run along like the dutiful daughter, the innocent woe is me act melted away as Kai once again knelt beside the girl and smiled his best smile. His instant change in persona. his dry wit confused and enticed the small redhead, she’d never met anyone like him before. “hey Annora, so I'm Kai... You want to know a secret?”

Her bright eyes sparkled at the thought as she nodded, and Kai whispered, the still raging fire illumination his smile into something cruel and making the blue pools of his eyes black and empty as he playfully bopped the end of her nose “I think you and I are going to be the very best of friends.”


	2. Chapter 2

It had been just a few short months since Annora’s arrival at the Parker house.  
They had treated the girl well, she had the smallest room in the large house which was more than enough for her, Roseanne, mother of the Parker clan, and Josette helped to decorate it in a pastel creamy yellow color that the child adored. Even Kai had pitched in, much to the rest of the family’s surprise, he even laughed playfully as Annora smudged paint on her cheek and added a matching mark to his own face, throwing a wink over to the child and making her smile.  
The act had also caught Roseanne’s eye, coursing an anxious pool to fill in the pit of her stomach, however it had to opposite effect on young Jo, who at seeing her twin brother’s actions almost jumped for joy. He had become cold and abrasive in his early teens, only presenting that charm and wit he had perfectly crafted to appease and manipulate, a phase that never seemed to end. Jo remembered when they were children, how they played and laughed, but somehow, she would always find him staring solemnly from his bedroom window after one or both of their parents had found fault with yet another thing the powerless boy had done.  
Even if one of those things had been trying to get a hug or offering a hand to help if his sister fell. Touch was not something her brother was permitted.  
She saw how he could be sometimes, sometimes he could be sweet and kind and ever since Annora had arrived he hadn’t been anything but to the girl… she hoped so much that their bond would make him better than their parents thought. Oh, the poor deluded fool.  
Kai sometimes watched Annora, she was a beautiful child no doubt, long crimson red curls, snow pale skin, sparkling blue-green eyes and an innocent yet broken little smile…. It was sickening to him.  
Oh he appreciated that she was an adorable child, more so than that he saw how much attention she would grow up to crave and expect, because she would be beautiful, but she could never know it… never know she was worth more than what Kai told her she was otherwise all the nicety’s would have been for nothing, and Kai really wasn’t patient enough to play nice for too long.  
Over those weeks Annora had settled in well, every time someone tried to touch her there were… incidents. Like how Joey had pulled her hair and the couch imploded, Kai thought it was hilarious, all that stuffing floating around the room, the younger kids scurried away from the loud noise like rats and Annora stood yet again biting her lip and staring at her fiddling fingers. Unfortunately, Joshua hadn’t agreed, he took Annora to the back of the house and glared daggers to the child, telling her to learn control and restraint if she ever wanted to survive.  
So after the Gemini leader left she just stood there in her sundress tapping her shoes together, until Kai crept out of his hiding place with fake concern pouring from him “hey, Annie-bee, so dads giving you a pretty hard time huh? I personally don’t know what he’s upset about, that sofa was hideous anyway.”  
He’s come to use that nickname often, noticing the child’s attachment to the small creature’s and wanting to be seen as taking an interest. The more she thought he cared for her, her hobby’s and stupid little things like her love of bee’s, the more she could be bent to his will; even if she had to be broken, he would make her bend.  
He takes a seat on the cool grass under the summer sun with a smile to the pouting redhead hugging her chest “it’s not fair, it’s not my fault Joey was mean to me!”  
“Please, life’s not fair! Besides, that has nothing to do with it, dad doesn’t care about the sofa and he sure as hell doesn’t care about your hair, he cares about one thing… your power!” he speaks as you would when you read a story, putting emphasis on certain words to make them seem bigger and scarier.  
Annora kicked at the ground before taking a seat beside him, bringing her knees under her chin “my mama told me not to use it, that I was too little and it wasn’t safe.”  
“Yeah, take advise from the woman who tried to kill you, good call kiddo.” He can’t help the eye roll because seriously, come on she’s four, not stupid, or maybe she is, Kai wasn’t sure yet.  
He looks at her, so weak and vulnerable, he could suck all the magic out of her right now, no one around to even witness her lifeless, magicless body being discarded in the nearby woods… oh was it tempting, but he had to think long term, yeah the kid was full of magic, magic he wanted but he’d be blamed if she went missing and he was suddenly a practicing witch, they’d deny him his Merge with Jo and he couldn’t have that. No the girl would live, for now.  
“look, Annie-bee, I know my father ok, he saved you because he figured you’d be a valuable asset to the coven, so if you don’t start figuring out your magic soon he might very well send you back to the wolf’s, or you know, your family, remember them? Big pretty knife ready to gut you.” in actual fact that wasn’t a lie, Kai knew his parents would always put the coven first… even before their own children and he was right, Annora was a tool to them nothing more.  
Annora looked at him, gnawing on her lip again as she crawled closer “will you teach me?”  
“Wish I could, kid but you see I’m not a normal witch, I’m just a pesky siphon.” He says with an almost bitter taste in his mouth.  
She looked at him though a small gap of the fiery curls that fell over her face with a confused stare “what’s that?”  
“A witch born without magic, but I can borrow it from other witch’s.” He said it so flippantly while picking at the grass, like it meant nothing to him, like that small detail hadn’t defined his entire life. Annora looked up at him, unsure of what she was about to ask “show me?”  
He tried to hide his smile from the child as he shrugged with fake horror “no, no I don’t want to hurt you… you’re just a baby.”  
“I’m four and a half! Show me!” Annora pouts angrily, kicking out her foot while Kai chuckles inside.  
Leaning into the redhead a smile creeps onto his face and voice becomes song-like “ok, but remember you asked for it.”  
Annora lets out a yelp as Kai grips her small frail arm, and strange tingling pain searing through the spot, almost burning to the touch. As he sucks the power from her with an expression of euphoria the small girl releases a tear with the bite of her lip, her small sniffle alerting Kai to how much pain he’s causing the girl, he can’t have her turning on him now.  
With a reluctant linger Kai pulls away from the girl, slapping on the concern he’d learned to mimic from his darling perfect twin sister “I’m sorry Annie-Bee, you ok?”  
“It hurt!” she sat rubbing her arms pouting like…. Well like a four-year-old.  
Kai feels the magic flow through him like a sharp buzz of lightning, it was a sugar high he’d craved like heroin as he raised his hand to pluck daisy’s from their peaceful beds and twisted together to make a crown that floated to rest on Annora’s head, she smiled brightly, forgetting all about the pain he’d caused thanks to his little gift.  
He watches her while she adores the crown giddily and shrugs “to bad I don’t have my own magic, I’d teach you, we could have taught each other, keep the mean old Gemini leader off our cases; Too bad.”  
Annora’s green speckled blue eyes shun like the morning sun as she beamed over to him brightly “why don’t you take some of my magic sometimes and we can practice?”  
“Really?”  
“Yep, we’re going to help each other… ‘coz we’re friends, right?”  
Oh, how it made his heart skip, that look of hope as she fell into the palm of his hand “We, my little Annie-bee, are best friend’s.”  
With his soft kind words, the redhead threw herself into the manipulative boy, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, careful to protect her daisy crown as she settled into his lap.  
How was she to know it was a ploy, he had shown her nothing but kindness, tenderness and honesty since the moment she’d arrived, yes, he could be rude and mean sometimes but he was nice and didn’t seem to hold any pity or fear towards her, that was all Annora wanted… that and to be loved, so she turned to him.  
The manipulative sociopath who always got what he wanted… one way or another.  
That poor, poor girl.


	3. Chapter 3

Eight months. 

It’s been eight months since Kai had convinced Annora to ‘train’ with him.

They would slip off into the woods when no one was looking, which considering the Parker’s distrust of their eldest son and expectations of their adopted daughter, had proven difficult. 

But they managed, and to the outside world Kai would seem almost devoted to the girl. Even Rosanne seemed almost convinced but Joshua watched the boy more closely than ever. 

Annora would follow him around like puppy to its master, much to Kai’s annoyance and eventual rage filled outburst. It happened in his bedroom the first time, she had been jabbering on about something he didn’t care to listen to while he was trying to study, re-reading the family grimoire for the thousandth time. She was just making so much noise and seriously pissing him off so he just grabbed her, lifting her into the air and shaking her frail little body as he screamed “SHUT UP! WHY WONT YOU JUST SHUT UP!”

Kai didn’t even blink as he absently dropped the girl to the hard floor and calmly returned to his studies “Now... Go away.”

And she did, Annora ran crying from the room and locked herself away for almost a week. not speaking a word to anyone. 

Kai tried in vain to repair the damage he’d made with his little outburst. I mean he’d actually apologized, yeah he didn’t mean a damn word of it but still... He even made her spaghetti and meatballs, that she would plead for nightly, her very favorite meal and left it by her bedroom door only for it to grow cold and attract flies.

God he hated being the good guy, it was frustrating as hell. Plus the glares he was getting from the rest of the coven were more than a little irritating. What with his brothers, Joey (15), Reese(12) and sister Gretchen (9) making jokes about how much trouble he was in for upsetting the ‘spare’ kid. Jo, their parents and Eloise(17) did nothing but glare disapprovingly. And obviously the twins were two so unless it involved candy or cartoons they didn't really care.

The only moment of relief from all the judging he got was when Pickles, Gretchen’s flat faced tabby cat, had scratched up Annora’s leg when she’s been studying rune’s with their father. 

So he left, he needed to get out, let off some steam... 

He spent half the night at a club, dancing along to the strobe light and blending along with the crowd of noise, getting both guys and girls to by his drinks, even almost beat a guy to death in the toilets when they dude put his hands on him after assuming that because Kai accepted his fruity cocktail that he was interested. Kai would probably have let it go if the freckly ginger hadn't been so pushy and rude. 

After all there was no excuse for poor manner’s.

Then after that he found the prettiest girl in the place and convinced her to take him home with her. Her name was Natalie, no, no, Nicole... Kimberly? 

Whatever, she was hot and Kai wanted her, and Kai always got what he wanted.

Her apartment was small and crappy and covered in girly frilly shit, but the sex was good and she had pork-grids.

Always a plus with pork-grinds.

She wanted the cuddle afterwords and Kai actually let her. He was in an almost good mood. The next morning was pleasant, she made him pancakes with to much flour in the batter but he ate them regardless. The pretty blonde smiled and laughed with him over breakfast, then he noticed her necklace, it was a golden bee with diamond lined silver wings, sparkly and oh so pretty. 

“I love your necklace by the way.” his voice was velvet smooth and followed with a bite of crappy syrup covered pancake.

The girl beamed in delight at his seeming interest as she cups the pendent with her well manicured fingers “thanks, it’s one of a kind, my parents got me it for my graduation, I know they usually do the car thing but I still had my Mini from my sweet sixteen. God, I remember when I saw this thing in the store, cost a small fortune and I just knew we couldn’t afford it but somehow they still got it for me. Pretty awesome right?”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes as his fingers glide over the sticky crumb covered knife on his plate “right. So your pretty sentimental with it then?”

She looked at him in confusion, obviously she was attached to the thing. “well yeah...”

He smiles so charmingly as he stands “and it looks so pretty on you, you know I have a little sister who loves those things to, well she's not really my sister, she's adopted. But anyway she’d kind of mad at me and that would be the perfect thing to make her smile and get me back in her good books. She really loves Bee’s.”

The tension fades at Kai’s cheery tone as he walks to stand behind the girl, seductively moves her blonde locks to place a kiss behind her ear, causing her to giggle “well the store’s gone but I’m sure we could fi...”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence, even her word as the syrup stained knife thrust into her back. She looked up to Kai’s blue eyes in horror gripped agony as she gasped for air “Annie will really love that necklace.”

He shrugged his almost apology with a smile as his hand pushed the blade deeper into her back. An inch to the right she’d have lived a few more seconds, to the left and she might have even survived, but Kai wasn't that stupid.

He unclasped the necklace with a first prize grin before putting it into his pocket, humming along as went into the kitchen to grab the half bottles of Vodka and Tequila before pouring it over the bed out into the hall and over the kitchen table, emptying the last over the poor girls corpse as he smiled flicking out a oven match onto the table before leaving the apartment “thanks, I had a great time.”

He doubled back as the fire started to engulf the living room with a chuckle “I almost forgot.” he snatched up the half bag of pork grinds and strolled away from the flames, fingering the necklace in his pocket with pride.

After the fire trucks arrived at the burning apartment Kai decided to get a cab, the scene had lost its interest to him. When he arrived home he paged Jo to come outside with some money because god forbid he kill anyone in front of the house, his parents would throw a fit.

People are so sensitive.

He didn’t even acknowledge his twin as he ran past her until turning to ask “have you seen Annora?”

“She sulked off into the clearing, Kai where have you been, Kai?”

“Just having a good time Sis, you should try it.” he gave her a smirking wink before skipping off to the clearing.

Annora was sat on an old stump in her favorite creamy yellow dress, her crimson curls hiked up high into a ponytail by a pearly white ribbon. He noticed a stick floating in midair over the child's shoulder and smiled “your getting better at that.”

Her head turns only slightly, to glare over her shoulder. Obviously still angry with the siphon. She was used to his angry glitches, he had them a lot, but this was the first that it had been directed at her. She’d felt so alone since coming to the Gemini Coven, she always knew she was different, that she was never meant to have all the power she possesses, but she has it and it scared her sometimes. Kai hadn't always been nice, but he had been accepting and he wasn't really mean either or afraid like the others. 

So yes she was angry, she didn’t understand why her parents had done what they did, not really and she was now living in a strange place were she was expected to be and do all these things she didn’t understand either. It was hard, but Kai was there to and like her he didn’t seem to fit in. She just wanted a friend...just someone.

“Go away!” she glared with her arms wrapped tight around her chest, the stick flying just a foot or so from Kai’s face. He chuckled and knelt beside her, fishing around is his pocket “now is that anyway to behave, come on Annie-bee, I got you a present...”

He sees interest twinkle in her eyes before he dangles the necklace over his knuckles. She all but snatches it from his hand, a face splitting smile spread over her face as she inspects the golden bee. “Oh Kai its so pretty!”

“Does that smile mean I’m forgiven, huh?” he rubs his knuckles over her blushing cheek before she throws her arms around his neck.

A sly smile came to the boys face as he used the embrace to steal a hit of the child's power, if it hurt she made no mention of it. The sensation of her magic coursing through him was like cool lemonade on a splintering hot summer day, refreshing and soothing. 

He pulls back from the embrace to place the necklace over her head, it sat low on her chest but she’d grow around the trinket. He then almost tenderly pushed a stray curl behind her ear with a smile “interested in getting some ice cream and watching me beat Joey at Dr. Mario?”

“You never beat him.” the girl laughs.

“With you as my cheerleader I will, and if that doesn't work I always have a bat in my closet.” they laugh together as he takes her hand to walk back home. The little argument forgot as they skip along the tree line.

Neither looking back to hear the deaf cries of a a flat faced tabby cat as its insides pooled around it, almost as though the intestines and lungs where poked out of the creature with a stick to make an appeasing pattern, half its face all but melted away and each and every claw ripped from its paws.

Poster’s were put up for Pickles before the week was over and Kai actually won that game of Dr. Mario against his brother.

So yeah, silver linings.


	4. Chapter 4

The weeks passed, turned into months and eventually it was Christmas. 

Annora, like every five year old little girl, loved Christmas. 

It was the lights and the colors and how everything seemed to sparkle just so. They walked around the store’s in glee, even Joshua seemed to be having a good time. Rosanne was rushed off her feet with the twin’s who had only turned three a few months ago, Reese and Joey ran off into the video store almost instantly, Josette and Eloise got stuck with Gretchen. While Kai stared skeptically at the shoppers and the tipsy Elf over near the grotto.

When Joshua had tried to take Annora’s hand she didn’t panic and nearly burn the place down like she had in the beginning, in fact she had come to smile with the man as they sat and studied for hours over the path that came with coven life and spells she would one day learn. He’d been impressed with her seeming to grasp the reigns on her emotions, she hadn't had an episode in weeks and he rewarded her efforts with extra snack breaks during their studies, just before Thanksgiving he’d placed a peanut jelly sandwich, he knew his other children enjoyed, before her, he even cut the crusts off. However the moment before it could touch her lips a strong hand snatched it from her grasp, coursing Joshua to glare angrily at his son “Kai, give that back to your sister.”

“Yeah, dad, because that's going to happen.” he laughed with a bite of the sandwich, strolling over to the take a half eaten bag of cheese balls from the cupboard.

Joshua stood to stare down his son who just laughed off the older man while handing the cheese balls to the well sat little girl, who simply watched the scene play out “Malachi!”

“Jesus your the one trying to poison the kid.”

Joshua looked at his son in confusion before Kai tilts his head and says in an condescending tone “what, the attempted child killers didn’t tell you our little Annie-Bee’s allergic to peanut’s?” they both look to the redhead now with cheeks puffed out and filled with her new snack as the orange dust smeared across her face “But she does love those cheese balls. Thanks for the sandwich, Pop.”

The wink Kai sent Annora and the smile they shared sent a shiver down the coven leaders spine. He knew that Annora and her power would be important to the family and that he didn’t trust Kai, his son wasn't right, he was an abomination. 

A witch born without magic? born to leech it from those around him. It’s not just wrong, it's an atrocity.

So when she had seemed to become more comfortable around him and the other siblings he almost relaxed, almost. She would play tag and hide and seek with Jo and Eloise, watch cartoons with the twins, bake cookies with Rosanne, laugh and throw chips at Reese and Joey, studies with Joshua but most of her time was spent with Kai, if they didn’t disappear into the woods they’d watch movie’s with Kai pointing out the plot flaws and Annora shushing him, they even watched Ricki Lake together sharing a bowl of popcorn with Annora falling asleep half way through the show more often than not. 

Kai would wipe away the drool with disgust but for some reason he wouldn't nudge her awake in annoyance like he would his other siblings.

Your probably wondering why Gretchen wasn't in the mix of people that the little redhead muddled with. Well you see they found Pickle’s... Yeah, it was more than a week so he’d firmly began to rot and was half devoured by maggot’s. So not really a pretty sight. Gretchen had screamed and roared the house down, even waking the twins from their naps as she naturally blamed Kai for the cats gruesome, ugly demise. Annora bit her lip fearfully as the older girl sobbed and Kai admitted nor denied anything, his mother glared daggers at him and Joshua just screamed at the boy. 

Kai hadn't understood what was exactly going on, not until he saw Annora biting her lip with the chain of her necklace being pulled side to side with fidgety fingers, staring into a old crack of the kitchen floor and mumbled to herself “it was just a mean, stupid cat anyway.”

Gretchen went kind of nuts, nearly lunching for the redhead only to be held back by her mothers arms. The five year old quickly decided that kicking Gretchen in the shin and running crying from the room was the best course of action. “Great. Annora!” Jo shook her judgmental little head at her twin, already deciding this was his fault, before racing after the child.

Jo found Annora cowering under her bed, it was her ‘safe place’ she called it. Clinging onto her tattered rabbit “Annora, sweetie, come out. Look Gretchen didn’t mean it, she was just upset about Pickles... Please come out.”

The bed shook slightly and toys flew from shelves, a large crack splintering into her bedroom window as the child screamed “I hate her, I hate her and I hated her stupid cat! I’m glad its dead, I hated it!”

“Annora...”

“GO AWAY! JUST GO AWAY!” 

She spend almost five hours under that bed, everyone had gathered around her door and tried to get her out, except Kai... He was flipping through catalog’s of what he wanted for Christmas. It was Eloise who convinced him to go and talk to the girl “Please Kai, we've all tried and you know your the only one she'll listen to... come on, don't be an ass, Annora needs you.”

It was the last three words of his sisters plea that swayed him, he was needed, the child needed him, which meant she depended on him, which meant he owned her. 

Owned her magic.

So naturally he went to her room, pushing passed the small crowd that had gathered at the girls door and kicked the bedpost “alright kiddo, hide and seeks over. Come on out.” 

There was no response so with a groan Kai laid down do he could see the little red head curled into the shadows of the carpet, clinging to her rabbit “Hey, feel like coming out of there any time soon.”

Her sweet puffy red eyes looked up at him as she sobbed “Why did they blame you?”

“Because Annie-Bee I’m bad seed; that's what we're here for.” its sarcastic laced poison and drips from his lips so easily. 

The tear tracks on her cheeks are all but dry as her small hand reached out for him “me too.”

Her tiny little fingers reach from under the bed to touch him, giving soft stokes to his wrist “I wish they weren't so mean to you. I hate when their mean to you.”

It was like all the air had been punched from his chest, a strange and unfamiliar sensation, she was looking at him in a way he just didn’t understand, a way he couldn't place... almost like she cared. but no, no, she just felt guilty or whatever for butchering that freaking cat and him taking the fall.

He was sure of it.

Kai swallowed hard, clicking his tongue at the strange unnerving feeling pooling in his chest as he looks at those big eyes watching him “yeah well. Come out, because I’m pretty much done lying on the floor. Hell I’ll even watch Beauty and the Beast with you again...” Annora uses his reaching hand to yank herself out of her hiding spot and races off to find her favorite video.

Kai watched her go with a twitch of a smile, but was still left under the bitter glares of his family.

That was long before Christmas, before the Parker house was surrounded with bright lights, large Santa slay and reindeer and fake snow stapled to the roof. Since then it had almost been peaceful among the family, yes it was loud and messy and never ending but there had been little to no bad words spoken. Mostly because Joshua had warned the family about upsetting Annora, after the last little episode she had spoken to no one but Kai for a week, the odd word give to Reese and Jo, plus there was also the business of Gretchen's hair being tied to the bed-frame in hundreds of little braids. However Kai had seemed a little to pleased with it for Annora to have been the culprit. 

All the same it was Christmas and all the children seemed to light up, letters to Santa written and ‘posted’, lights sparkling and a brightly decorated tree touching the ceiling, with mountains of presents littered underneath. Rosanne worked hard for all the kids to have their very own Christmas sweaters. 

Both sets of twins matching of course. 

Joshua watched Annora closely as she ran around the brightly lit tree, and it was driving Kai insane. You see during the family outing at the mall while the children waited in line to sit on some strangers knee and beg for gifts, Kai had been biting his tongue and tapping his foot impatiently; It was more than just the infuriating, tedious hanging around for a photo with some old pervert in a red suit. No, what with his father’s insistence of the rest of the family being nice to Annora he’d hardly had a moment with the girl, hadn't had a drop of her magic in weeks. He’d managed to snake some from the idiotic toddlers that didn’t understand, it was like a drop of water after a long run... it hadn't been enough, siphoning from Annora was like a rain storm in the desert. 

He twitched in the memory of it as he shoved his way through the line of expecting children to stand beside his adoptive sister, she flinched for a moment at the unexpected drain on her power, just a moment before smiling up at him and nuzzling into his hand. The feel of her magic rushing through his veins was better than any drug man could phantom to make. 

Soothing, thrilling, freeing while shackling... An almost addiction.

He’d been stupid. Not something Kai was used to but it was the truth. Joshua had seen... Something... Annora flinch? The breath of joy from his son? The mild glow of the boys hand? Kai didn’t know but he’d seen something, and as a result had given them no room the breathe the same air since. 

It was more than a tad irritating. 

“Hey Annora.” Joey smiled as he rushed behind her to lift the girl from her feet, making her giggle. 

Rage bubbled in Kai’s veins at the sight, how dare she enjoy his brothers company... Then he saw it, her fear; his opportunity. Joey wasn't putting her down, just kept swinging the almost screaming child and the more upset she became the more Joey swung while the others laughed. 

That is until Kai rushed to place a hand on his brother’s neck, snaking an arm around the crimson haired child as Joey fell to his knees from the unfamiliar sensation of having his magic sucked away. The laughter died, the room falling deadly silent as Annora was balanced on Kai’s hip while he cupped her face in an almost caring manner “you OK, Annie-Bee?”

With a sniffling nod of her head she quickly wrapped her arms around her savior to nuzzle into his neck “Malachi. Put. Her. Down!”

Rosanne stood stern with a bitterness in her words; while his father came to rip the child from Kai’s grasp. 

“Seriously, you guys are seriously mad at me here? Joey was the one scaring her!” it started as a chuckle but ended with a steely gaze as Joshua held the girl close. 

Roseanne took a step forward with her fists clenched tight and a look of utter disgust towards her own child “how dare you! Yes Joey took it to far but you... You siphoned him!”

“Yeah, to help Annora.” 

This only seemed to fuel his mothers rage “THAT’S NO EXCUSE! HE’S A REAL WITCH; A WITCH BORN INTO THIS COVEN AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO HIS POWER... ITS REPULSIVE!”

"As I've away's known, you cant be trusted with actual power...” Joshua snarls towards his son and in that moment the room begins to shake; everyone turns to Kai believing him to be abusing his stolen power.

“Kai sto...” the Coven leader doesn't get the chance to finish his scolding before being flung into the far wall with his feet dangling from the ground below him; as for the girl that was in his arms she remains where she was, without anyone holding her small body that now floats in mid air. 

The room falls in fear filled silence, because that sweet innocent child with big doe eyes and shy smile had been ripped away and in her place was a creature filled with rage and power. The blue of her eyes had vanished, all color gone in fact to leave nothing but a bright white glow from the little girl’s eyes. 

All the younger children scurried behind Jo in terror at the sight, while Kai stood awe-stuck at the scene. Roseanne inched toward her adopted daughter with a trembling hand “Annora, stop this, please...”

A vase flew across the room and smashed into Roseanne’s arm, pieces of glass buried into her skin as the earth began to shake “No, you stop! Your always being so horrible to him. The way you talk to him, treat him... It’s not fair. Your just like them, just like my parents... this isn't our fault. We didn't ask to be born this way!”

“We know that... Annora we care...” Joshua was slammed across the room as the girls feet reached the floor and the windows shattered around them. Kai rushed to grab the outraged child and cradled her close. She fought only for a moment until their eyes met, the baby blue color coming back to her. 

All eyes watched the pair in horrified fascination, Kai’s gaze darting from each of them to the child clinging onto and staining his shirt with her snotty tears. He didn’t understand, yes the display of power was pretty awesome but why... Why would she do that... For him? 

That’s just insane. 

“I wont let them hurt you anymore.”

There it was, that strange pang of ‘something’ in his chest. Kai felt like he was choking on it, on her barely heard whisper that made him want to rip her into confetti and never let her go all at the same time...

It was unusual, but he couldn’t dwell on it. So Kai did the only thing he could think of, he scooped the little redhead into his arms and strolled away from all the family drama and shattered glass. 

He wouldn't know it then; that he almost cared.


	5. Chapter 5

After the ‘incident’ things had been more than a little tense in the Parker house. The rest of the children avoided Annora ever since, making sure to leave the room when she came in, turning back on their heel when she met them coming down the corridor.

Things with Joshua and Roseanne had been strained as well; for obvious reasons.

Her seasons with Joshua came to a grinding halt and even Jo, who tried so hard to see the good, barely spoke to the girl.

Now most of her magic training was done with Kai, she would sit between his legs as they read over the family grimoire together, memorizing spells and chants while sharing a big bag of chips and soda’s. They practiced what they’d learned from the grimoire in the safe seclusion of the woods. Annora felt safe there, surrounded by the trees that guided the sun around her, with Kai.

Kai had done many bad things but he’d never judged or hurt her, he was her friend. 

Her family.

Kai had seemed so proud when Annora finally managed to make water from the lake rise and float into the sky like bubbles. He even took her for ice-cream, Mint-choc-chip for her and Strawberry for him, because Vanilla was boring and Chocolate was overrated. The cashier girl was flirting shamelessly with Kai and when she ‘happened’ to slam her arm in the large freezer door because she was to busy flaunting her tits to Kai, Annora couldn’t help but laugh. 

Then as they sat eating their desserts Kai watched the girl for a moment, looking at the pensive child who was slowly spinning her ice-cream around, before asking “whats rattling around in that itty bitty little head of yours Annie-Bee?”

“What’s the merge thing your always studying for about?” 

“Why do you ask?”

Shes still stirring her ice-cream but actually looking at him know “I heard your mom and dad talking about it.”

Now that caught his attention; Kai lent further across the table with a tilt of his head and a mouth full of chilled strawberry goodness “yeah, what were they saying?”

“Roseanne said it was wrong to let you do it encase you actually won and Jo was crying...”

He could feel his blood turn to in instant boil as he breathed in wanting nothing more than to scream and break every person in the room into sopping messes on the floor, then out of nowhere tiny fingers reached out to him and took his hand with a light squeeze “don’t worry Kai, we’ll figure it out. I know how important this is to you.”

There it was again, that strange pull nudging from inside his chest. Kai thought it could be nausea or heart burn; brushing off the connection to that feeling with the big adoring blue-green Bambi eyes that would stare over at him with no judgment or hate. 

The twins birthday was coming up, no not those twins, the other twins. The eldest twins were about to turn twenty-two and Annora had never seen Kai so excited. She wasn't sure what to get him, its not like she had much in the way of money, I mean come on she was six, so had to try and rely on the twenty bucks Joshua and Roseanne would give each of the children for presents. 

But then she remembered how Kai had gotten her a perfectly detailed dress matching Belle’s ball gown to a T; he even dressed as Beast for her. Yeah it may partly have been because the week before her party she had walked into his room during one of his tantrums and he’d siphoned her dizzy, but that was beside the point, Annora knew this birthday was special, it was the beginning of the merge... 

It had to be special. 

Not to long after Kai and Annora’s little ice-cream outing she skipped over to Joshua’s study, biting at her lip and fiddling with her fingers as she rooted around the draws but when she couldn’t find what she needed the six year old stood with a nervous lick of her lips and closed her eyes as she muttered a spell under her breath, praying she was getting the words right. When her eyes opened it was to the sound of a sweeping bang and with what seemed to be a red leather book at her feet. 

The young redhead knew by now that Joshua was secretive and distrusting, but she was Annora Grove, the feared child of the so called mighty Ternion Coven. 

So with a simple wave of her untrained hand and deep focusing breath she ripped away the cloaking spell to reveal a wooden box. Annora couldn’t help the triumphant smile as she snapped open the lid and snatched up a heavy silver amulet without much thought. 

Not caring to clear up her obvious snooping and little theft, she had work to do.

Let them blame each other. 

Annora had practiced and practiced, reciting the Latin almost in her sleep so when the time came, as she stood alone in the woods she had come to call home with the thick moonlight brushing through the tree line, she was ready. 

The candles circling Annora came alive as she placed a small wooden rune into a bowl made from nature, well it was actually a wooden salad bowl she'd taken from the kitchen but it was the best she could do, and began to speak words long dead, like a prayer. Her small hand looked even tinier as she raised the large kitchen knife to slice across her milky palm, blood pooling into the bowl. The rune all but swimming in thick crimson.

Then she raised a silver amulet, it was old and dented but it was pure silver, pure magic. And as it left her uninjured hand to fall into the shallow pool Annora felt her veins ignite like fireworks, her eyes whitewashed as the air and earth swept around the sacred circle. The contents of the bowl burst into flames, but if you looked closely, between the flickers of light you could she the precious metal melting and molding with the blood.

As the fire burned out and the words ended Annora returned to herself and smiled in glee filled shock at the sight before her “I did it... Oh my god I actually did it!” 

she did a strange little dance in the middle of the deserted woods before retrieving her prize. The silver had seemed to form around the rune, falling into the ridges of the flimsy wooden token, making it shine and sparkle but if you tilted it in the light you could almost see a dark red gleam against the silver. 

Annora was more than a little impressed with herself as she skipped back to the Parker house. She slept soundly that night, she just couldn’t wait to see Kai’s face on his birthday. 

Kai was almost giddy with his and Jo’s birthday coming up, everything he had worked for, everything he had done. It was about to pay off. I mean yeah he’d have to technically kill his twin sister but hey that's the price of being a Gemini. He would be leader of the coven, he’d have power all his own and respect of the coven. 

Kai sat in his room wondering what it would feel like, to have his own magic. Wondered how his parents were planning on ruining his life further. Wondering what to do with Annora after the merge. The original plan had been to simply drain her magic, take it all for himself and have someone get rid of her body before it began to stink up the place. It was a good plan, he’d have even more magic and have actually done the Ternion Coven a favor, meaning they’d owe him, which was always a good thing to have. 

But that was before the thought of her lifeless little body, of those big bug eyes looking, not at him, but through him and missing that fiery spark, left a sickly feeling in his stomach; like eating to much candy.

Don’t get me wrong Kai would easily feed the kid her own intestines if he wanted to, but he just didn’t. That’s all. He liked how she took his unusual temperament in her stride, her eagerness to protect and please him, he liked how he didn’t have to pretend to be the nice guy all the time, yeah there where moments it was called for but other than that...

Anyway it doesn't matter, he’d decided to keep his little Annie-Bee around, she could be his little pet, keep training her, keep her close... She’d already proven she had a lot of power, power that Kai had worked hard to nurture and control and steal. 

Hey, with the amount of Disney crap he had to watch he more than earned her power. Annora was his little magic machine, his to keep or his to kill.

The morning of the party Joey came in to wake Annora with a gentle shove “hey, kid, mom and dad wants everyone downstairs pronto.”  
Annora just smiled at him lightly before rushing up to get dressed, having already picked out her outfit the night before. She rushed into her red velvet dress and tie the black ribbon around the back with a matching on in her long crimson curls. 

Black, Kai’s favorite color. Even though he’d explained to her that it wasn't actually a color, black and white are actually absent colors. Maybe that's why he liked it so much, because it was dark and different from the rest... Like him.

Anyway, Annora rushed to grab the two messily wrapped presents she’d stashed under her bed before heading down stairs. In the living room everyone was gathered around with presents in hand and Annora slotted into place near the back as everyone pooled around her. Over hushed voices they heard the footsteps climbing down the stairs and the moment the elder twins take one foot into the room everyone, even the younger twins, begin to sing ‘Happy Birthday’.

They swarm around the pair like bee’s to honey while Annora stands back, along with Joshua to watch the scene before them. For a moment it seemed as though the animosity had been forgot for the day, but by the vacant stare on Joshua’s face she doubted it.

Meanwhile Kai stood tempted to kick his siblings away as they all shoved their gifts in his face, eager to get it over with so they could eat cake and the finger food laid out in the corner. He took each gift with the feeling of his mothers cold glare across the room, his father stood vacant but Kai knew something was wrong, they were up to something. 

Then he noticed Annora, stood like a porcelain doll in her pretty red dress; those sweet pale little fingers toying with with her necklace as she stood patently. Waiting like a good girl while Joey shoved a gift into Kai’s face “hey dude, open mine.”

With a heavy sigh he unwrapped the present and was actually pleasant surprised “Mortal Kombat. Thanks little bro, I’ll kick your ass on this later.”

“You wish.” 

It was only with their laughter had Kai noticed a certain redhead stood in front of his twin. Jo smiled ear to ear at the red choker before taking the six year old in her arms. It almost angered Kai at how Annora sometimes turned to Jo and Eloise, she looked up to them because they were kind and good and women and a bunch of other crap, the reason it didn’t completely enrage him is because she had this look, the look he’d seen on TV, that the twin’s gave their mother, that Eloise gave to her latest crush, Reese to chocolate cake, Joey to video games, Gretchen had to her stupid cat and Jo when she looked up to their father.

He didn’t really understand it, that look, but if he had to guess maybe it was love. 

Yikes. Gross, just blah...all those feeling... It hurt his head to think about. 

Anyway Kai decided he wanted to interrupt the girls little moment, but felt something blocking his path an invisible wall he couldn’t pass. With a quick scan of the room he saw his mother chanting under her breath, felt his anger rise from the pool in his stomach and turned on his heel to head outside, smashing a lamp on in way with a loud scream. 

Everyone looked but paid not much attention, so used to Kai’s little outbursts.

Annora felt her heart drop at the sight and was about to head out to him when Roseanne grabbed her shoulder “come with me...”

“Mom... Mom what are you doing?” Jo called after the pair before sending a frantic look to her father. 

“Roseanne? Roseanne!” Joshua called with panic in his eyes. 

Kai stood white knuckled on the porch as he heard the raised voices and slamming door’s, he turned the corner to see his mother push Annora into the car, his dear old dad racing after them and half the kids scurrying like rats to see whats going on “Roseanne stop, you cant do this...”

“We have to do something! I wont have everything we’ve built destroyed... Not because of them!” with that she got into the car and Joshua began to chase after them waving a hand to use magic to stop them but it was to late, they were gone. 

“Anyone care to explain that to me?” 

Eloise shrugged as they all looked on in confusion “mom just grabbed her and ran out, do you know anything?” 

“For once I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers Sis.” with that he followed his father inside to his study, Joshua had already started some spell or another as his eldest son “Dad what’s going on?”

The coven leader turned to his child with a look of disdain “this is your fault, manipulating that child... Your an abomination to the Gemini Coven.”

“Slow down old man, what the fuck did I do? Your crackpot wife is the one that just run off with the kid you just ‘took in’” there it was again that rage, but before Kai had a chance to fully express that rage he was magically pushed from the room, doors slamming shut as his ass hit the floor. 

With a harsh low scream Kai stood and snatched the keys to the old family truck as he passed by his confused and panicked sisters “Kai where are you going? What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” he didn’t know how but knew all this was about the merge, he knew his mother was up to something and now she had his magical meal ticket. 

Whatever her plan he had to stop her, no matter what.  
Annora sat quietly in the car, still hanging on to Kai’s present as she shakily asked Roseanne “where are we going?”

Her eyes never leave the road as she sobs “I never wanted this, we were going to train you right, raise you properly, to be a leader. We’d truly unite the coven’s but Kai... That boy has twisted you, just like him. You shouldn't exist... Either of you.”

Now the child really was scared, but also angry “who gives you the right to say that? We’re here and we’re different, so what! We’re not going anywhere!”

She gave off a sad bitter chuckle with a quick cold glare “you think your just ‘different’, that your ‘special’? You have no idea how wrong you are little girl, you think your meant to be this great leader, but your not. Your coven is meant to be run by three leaders, sharing the responsibility and the flow of power but you... You killed them, you absorbed your two siblings in the womb, stole their power and think your entitled to it? Your just like Kai, your an abomination and I wont let him use your ignorance to destroy everything we’ve made. The Coven has to come first...”

Annora shook her head, no, she’s lying, she’s never killed anyone... The stupid cat doesn't count. 

When the speed of the car picked up Annora truly began to become afraid “I don’t understand. Roseanne stop, stop your scaring me!”

She took one long look at the child before her with tears streaming down her face “I’m so sorry, I don’t have a choice, I have to do this; for the coven.” 

Kai was gaining on them, he figured his mother was going to take Annora back to the Ternion’s, he couldn’t allow that, he’d worked so hard to gain her trust, her power and now his stupid judgmental bitch of a mother thought she could just take it all away. 

Well, he just couldn’t allow that...


	6. Chapter 6

This wasn’t meant to happen, they never meant for this, but as the sun fell from the sky and sticky dark crimson began to dry on shaking, shock ridden flesh; they realized it probably was all leading to this, no matter the choices made or the roads taken… this would forever be how it was meant to be. 

…Dark.

…Bloody.

…And so epic-ally tragic.

44 HOURS EARLIER

Kai stopped in the center of a crossroad, staring down each path in wide eyed horror before kicking and screaming in his seat, smashing his hands and head into the steering wheel, coursing a tinny treacle of blood to fall from his brow. He’d lost them, how could he loose them?

After a deep breath Kai turned the car around, he needed to have a little father son time.

Meanwhile Annora sat almost bored in the car but her confused hurt daze kept her sniffling to herself quietly. Roseanne spared a glance to the child, she hadn’t meant to scare her before however her anger with Kai had gotten the best of her.

“Annora I’m sorry, look were just going to make a quick trip and then everything will be fine. I promise.”

The dainty redhead looked with watery eyes through her long lashes and mumbled “where are we going?” Her voice was shaky, scared and mildly distrusting. Roseanne smiled kindly down to the child and answered honestly “the park sweetie, the waterfront park; have a little ‘us’ time, yeah?”

This brought a sad smile to the girls face, not noticing the white of Roseanne’s knuckles gripping the wheel ever so tightly as a stray tear falls from the corner of her eye.

Kai slammed through the front door of his family home; making many of his siblings jump, as they were all huddled in the living room after Jo and Eloise had somehow managed to calm them all.

As the eldest son stormed down the hall he was met by his brother Joey “Kai, did you find them?” 

“Does it look like I found them? What’s happening here?”

They’d made into the kitchen where Kai glared around the room, Joey leaning in closer as they sit across each other from the island “Jo and El have been doing damage control and dad’s been locked in his study since you left. What the fuck is going on man? Why would mom just take off with Annora like that?”

“They’re up to something, yet another way to ruin my life no doubt and mommy dearest seems to have gone rouge.” Kai opens the fridge to grab a beer, feeling the need for some form of alcohol in his system.

Joey sits with a nervous twitch of his fingers “Man, whatever it is its bad! We need to do something, we need to…”

In that moment they heard the study door slam and the pair, along with the others from the living room rushed out to see their father racing to the car “Dad, what’d going on? What’s happening?”

At Jo’s words Joshua turns to her, taking his shoulders in his hands “you stay here, take care of the family…”

She birthday girl nods while Kai grabs his father’s arm only to be met with a glare of utter disdain “where are they?”

“You did this. Everything that happens now is on your shoulders.” Ripping his arm from his son Joshua stormed into the car with a barely heard mumble “why couldn’t you just be normal?”

It was nothing new, nothing he wasn’t used to, his parents had always despised him but he couldn’t just let him leave. Especially without knowing what his devious mother was up to “You can’t just leave you…” but Kai’s words fell on deaf ears as his father raced away from the Parker house.

Kai’s hands flew to his dark hair, pulling hard as he kicked at the ground “Fuck! FUCK YOU DAD! FUUCK!”

As Kai stormed in the middle of the yard Jo grabbed his arm while Eloise hurried everyone inside “Kai, Kai!”

“What?”

He turned to see his twin sister along with Joey and Reese looking at him “Kai just let dad handle this. Whatever’s going on I’m sure it’ll be ok.” 

He couldn’t help the dark chuckle that left his lips as he gently, almost lovingly cupped his sister’s face “wow, I can’t believe how completely stupid you actually are, Josette.”

“Um, guys I don’t know about you but I for one want to know what’s going on…” Joey shrugs; trying to move on from the awkward murderous glare in his brother’s eyes.

“Well little brother what do you suggest?” Kai claps in a very melodramatic tone.

With that all eyes turn to the devious smile on Joey’s face. 

A few minutes later the four a huddled around the door while Joey picks the lock of their father’s study “Guy’s we shouldn’t be doing this. Dad would go nuts!”  
Reese’s objections are ignored as Joey work’s and Kai rolls his eyes and examines his little brother lock picking kit “Huh, guess you really are my brother after all.”

The two share a wicked smile while Jo stops her worried pacing but for a second as the door finally clicked open. Joey and Kai smiling ear to ear as the elder brother smacked his hand on Joey’s “Look at you Joe-Joe, our very own MacGyver.”

“Guys Maybe Reese is right, dad will be back soon with mom and Annora, and he’s going to be so pissed…” Jo hovered around by the door with Reese, daring not to enter the room. 

Joey and Kai however made no reservations about strolling in and snooping “well well, looks like dear old dad’s been a very busy bee.”

There were maps strewn across the large desk, blood and burned herbs staining them while Jo finally decides to step foot inside to examine the maps “looks like a locator spell… a very powerful one at that.”

“Well obviously, mom isn’t stupid enough to take off and not try to cover her tracks with some cloaking.” Joey rolled his eyes at his sister while Kai all but ran out of the room, pushing Reese out the way as Kai rushed past. 

They all look to the map and see the location on the maps; Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park. 

Meanwhile Annora smiled as Roseanne held her hand, merrily licking at her ice cream cone as she asked with a shaken tone “Roseanne, did I really kill my brothers or sisters?”

A pang of guilt hit the older woman as the two took a seat facing the water and the small match off sand between the waves and the field “it wasn’t your fault sweetie; Vanishing Twin Syndrome is just something that happens. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“Is that why my mommy and daddy didn’t want me?” she couldn’t tear her eyes from the cone dripping pieces of minty green onto her pale fingers.

“Annora, you have to understand. This type of thing was unheard of before you… they only did what they felt was right, for the sake of the coven.” 

“I don't care, I hate them, why is the coven more important than me? I’m their daughter!”

Roseanne had heard that question before, well something similar. The coven was a life line, a course above any one single person, even one’s own child. 

"Sweetheart, you may be to young to understand but the coven… the coven is our meaning, keeping the balance… and sometimes doing what needs to be done, means doing something sinful. Do you understand?”

Roseanne stroked the child’s beautiful crimson curls with a sorrowful watery gleam in her eye before forcing a smile on her face and standing to reach for the girl’s hand “how about we go and dip our toes in the water hum?”

Annora smiled eagerly, taking Roseanne’s hand and all put pulling her towards the water. Completely unaware that not a surrounding soul could see them, invisible to the eyes of any other… after all Roseanne couldn’t afford to be interrupted.

Kai and much to his annoyance Jo, Reese and Joey had all managed to get to talk a random guy from town that Jo knew into borrowing them his car. Kai would have saved ten minutes by just bashing the idiot’s heads in and taking the damn thing. 

But that didn’t matter; they were all put parked when they noticed a certain Gemini leader. 

Rushing out from the car they all headed to their father “Dad, dad did you find them?” 

“No, your mother is using a very intricate cloaking spell.”

“Well I wonder who taught her that?!” Kai quipped bitterly. 

Jo slapped her brother’s arm angrily “not now Kai.”

Joshua quickly took his eldest daughters hand “Jo, I’m weakened from the locator; by channeling you I’ll be able to trace them here.”

With a large gulp Reese stared and pointed off to the water “I don’t think you’ll have to.”

Everyone turned to see the unusual thrashing of the water, but nothing was there. 

“Oh my God…” Jo gasped as they ran across field. 

Annora was struggling so hard, she didn’t understand what was happening; just a minute ago Roseanne was telling her about how she would bring Josette and Kai to that park as children. It had been the first time Kai had siphoned, they were just three years old and he was mad at Jo for splashing him and he’d grabbed her arm. Jo was weak and almost comatose for two days after, Roseanne let out a tear as she spoke those words, her fingers grazing over the back of the child’s curls as she talked about how dangerous Kai was… even back then. Suddenly with a blink of an eye Annora was shoved under the water, held firm as she struggled and let out gargled screams. 

Her small arms felt heavy as Roseanne’s hand pushed so hard on the back of her skull. She was so tied, it hurt, it hurt so much and she just wanted it to go away… so she let go, just for a second… she let go.

“Roseanne!” Joshua screamed as he neared and managed to take hold of his wife, breaking the cloaking spell. 

“ANNORA!” Joey was the one who screamed the child’s name, watching her limp little body floating in the water, but it was Jo who reached her first and pulled her out of the water. 

Kai saw his sister, but he didn’t see her, all he saw was a this little limp pale dripping lump in her arms, a bluish glaze barely touching her skin. Without thought she was ripped from Jo’s arms and was cradled close to Kai’s chest as he fell to his knees. 

“Annora, Annie-bee… hey, comes on wake up! Wake up! Do you hear me you annoying little brat you wake up now! … Annie… please.” He was rocking slightly, brushing away her dripping red hair as this usual sensation he’d had from the moment he saw her in Jo’s arms physically engulfed him “ANNORA WAKE UP!”

His chest felt like it was on fire, not just normal crappy heartburn but actually on fire and he felt physically sick and like he was going to puke worse than any hangover could course. He couldn’t breathe and then he saw his mother for the first time, she was crawling over to them while the rest of the family looked on in horror. Roseanne let out a bitter laugh as she saw the small still child in her sons arms “it’s over, it’s over… you’ll never be the leader of this coven and you’ll never use that poor girl again.”

Rage. 

Sheer rage boiled in Kai’s blood as he reached out to grab his mother around her throat, pulling away her magic as he chuckled darkly “Oh, mom, you stupid, pathetic, worthless bitch… I will either lead this coven or I will destroy it and I’ll do it all with the help of my little Annie-Bee, you see we are going to tear apart everything you ever cared about. The way you were meant to care about me… too bad you won’t be around to see it.”

Everyone was screaming and yelling at him but couldn’t reach him as his mothers drained power was used to shield them, but not only that; as the hand wrapped tight around his mothers throat blazed a red shimmer, so did the other clinging to the tiny body laid out in his lap, drenching his clothes. 

Roseanne began to cough water with a confused panic and terror in her eye, noticing how the blue tint of Annora’s skin was warming “It’s all about balance right mom? Like when you and dad shot Lucky because I killed that deer… I actually really liked that stupid mutt.”

He looked for one last moment into his mother’s eyes, the eyes she gave to him and his own twin sister “you should have given me a chance…”

Roseanne took one last glance over to her Husband and tried in vain to speak, to say goodbye. Before she has the chance her eyes roll into the back of her head, seeing black spots before the darkness swept her away; Kai finally letting her go as he felt some movement in his lap.

“Annora?!” Her eyes opened, those blue-green eyes he sometimes hated actually opened, and she started coughing up water that filled her lungs… Kai was left with yet another strange and almost overwhelming sensation. 

“Kai?... I don’t feel too good.” He laughed at her confusion and pulled the girl close to his chest, ignoring the scene around him as he squeezed her close. 

“You killed her…”

With those words Kai spared a glance to his father, who cradled Roseanne similar to how he was holding Annora “YOU KILLED YOUR OWN MOTHER!” 

With a roll of his eyes Kai scoffed “No great loss there…”

“Kai how could you?” Jo was crying; it was gross. 

The dark glare Kai shot his sister could burn the very sun “How could I? She drowns Annora, a six year old, a child! And I’m the bad guy?”

“You mean your meal ticket!” Reese spat with the first glimpse of a spine he’d ever shown.

Kai couldn’t help but laugh as Annora leaned up to cough and heave out the water still lingering, Kai's large hand seemed so big against her back as he pulled back her dripping hair “look at you, little brother; finally more than a shrug in the form of an actual opinion… good for you.”

Joshua observed his eldest son with nothing but disdain and contempt, watched him rub the small girls back, almost caring but Joshua knew better, she was just a tool, Kai’s puppet “your mother was right!”

“Excuse me, dad I didn’t hear that what are you mumbling about?” Kai didn’t even bother to look over, just carried on nursing the revived child.

“Tonight I’m calling the sister covens, where we’ll decide your fate… the merge is cancelled.” An ambulance had pulled up and it was just then Kai noticed the gathered crowd of mortals.

However that was the least of his worries, he stood abruptly, almost knocking Annora to the ground as he gripped his father’s arm like a vice “What?! You can’t do that; it’s my birthright!”

Joshua spared but a glance to his beloved wife’s corpse before turning to stone in the eyes of his son “not anymore. You and Jo will never merge, you will never lead under any circumstances and after the covens meet I’ll make sure they send you to Dowager for your crimes!”

Kai took a step back, bewildered that his father would go to such lengths. I mean come on Kai saved the kid, he’s the hero here… then why is everyone looking at him like the villain.

“Kai?”

Well, not everyone. 

Annora stared up at him, tugging lightly on his pants leg with a shaky grip and those massive blue-green eyes, so full of life and adoration… only she had ever seen him like that; like he mattered.

His little Annie-Bee…

So scoping the girl up Kai simply smiled to the Gemini leader “alright dad, you do whatever you think is best.”

Joshua’s face was filled with confusion and a hint dread at his son’s words. Meanwhile Kai strolled Annora past Joey, who sat a snotty, teary mess on the floor, and over to the ambulance “our mom dried to drown her; I figured that might need some looking into.”

The paramedic’s moved quickly to get Kai and Annora into the truck where the young girl reached into the pocket of her dress as she was laid onto the gurney “I got you a present, it got wet.”

“Well thank you Annie-Bee.” Kai let out a half chuckle as he tore off the dripping wrapping and was confused for a moment at the silver dipped rune hanging from a thick braid of leather “a locating rune? Remind me to up your allowance come Christmas because…”

Annora giggled, that giggle fighting with a deep cough she managed to get out “no silly, no I made it special… so that no matter where we are, you’ll always be able to find me.”

It was irony that made him laugh this time as the paramedic place a breathing mask over the girls face “now where was this earlier huh?”

As he put the necklace over his head, Annora brushed her little fingers against his cheek lovingly “Happy Birthday Malachi.”

He placed a small kiss into her palm before casting a glance over to crowd gathered at his mother’s body, his magical siblings, perfect twin and catching the eye of his father a final time before the ambulance door’s closed.

A cruel smile curling at the corners of his lips “Well, my birthday’s not over yet..”


	7. Chapter 7

The police came to the hospital asking all sorts of questions. Annora wouldn’t let any of the doctors touch her… not until Kai stroked back her hair and reassured her that it was ok, they were there to help.

Somehow they’d let the girl go home with her ‘father’ even after everything and Kai had a sneaky suspicion that some sort of witchy woo was a part of it. I mean come on a woman dies trying to murder a little girl and the police just let them all merrily skip away? 

…Doubtful. 

It was so quiet when they got back to the house, the car ride had been more than a little awkward after Joshua had left to meet with the sister covens and Josette had tried to rip Annora away from Kai. Not that it did her much good. Annora clung to Kai for dear life, kicking and screaming while Jo gripped the child’s waist and pulled her away, Annora lost her grip for just a second, but in the second she screamed and the each beneath them shook and pain burned through their heads as the girl quickly wrapped herself tight around Kai's waist, making him smile as he brushed his fingers through her long red curls and fiddled with the silver rune hanging from his neck “looks like Annie-Bee and I are road trip buddies.”

The twins were sat in the living room watching cartoons, Jo hadn’t told them yet about what had happened… she figured it should be their father to break the news and Eloise had barely left her room except to slap Kai and scream, then she was slammed into the far wall and finally noticed the mute redhead clinging to Kai’s hand and her face fell with shame and guilt and so much frustrated confusion. Yes Kai had killed their mother… but he did it to counter her own dark deed.   
So Eloise ran from the room in tears, she hated Kai so much, but she also kind of understood and she hated that fact even more. 

Reese had resound himself to kicking and breaking things through the house until he marched off into the woods with nothing but hate and disgust towards his eldest brother and adopted sister “You did this, you and that stupid little bitch! I wish mom and Dad had let her die, I wish she never came here… your fucking monsters!”

Gretchen had fallen into a pit of silence, her eyes red rimmed from bitter tears as she sat in her parent’s room clinging to a pink sweater that was stained with Roseanne’s perfume. 

And Joey well he just had this blank look on his face the whole way home and even when they got back he just seemed numb, locked away in his room almost like he was in some sort of void state. 

Kai had rushed Annora into her room so she could wash and change out of her clothes that had began to smell because of the damp, leaving Jo to take care of the twins while he grabbed a bunch of snacks and sodas and barricaded them both upstairs in his room.

He even let her pick what video they could watch, but she just shook her head, switching from playing with her necklace to the bright red ribbon tying back her crimson curls. She’d never been so quiet and Kai didn’t like it. Annie was always the one laughing and smiling; she’s the only one Kai would allow to tell him off.   
So he did the only thing he could think of, he put on Beauty and the Beast. 

The hours past and three Disney movies later the sun had fallen out of the sky and only moonlight lit the room. Kai looked down at Annora; she looked so peaceful, lying safely in his bed with deep soothing breaths. That day had been so strange, he’d never seen her like that before, she’d always been the little ball of fire but that day… she was weak and frail and so small and they took her away from him, just for a moment they took her away. 

Kai still didn’t quite understand that feeling that had overcome him when he saw her in Jo’s arms, just a limp little body, what made her Annora was gone and that all she was a corpse. The worst part was that feeling hadn’t left him; dread… but neither had the rage.

They were going to take her away from him, the one person who knew him, knew his tendency to snap and break and destroy and still looked at him like he was the whole world. Kai decided he liked that feeling. He also decided he wasn’t going to let his father destroy what he’d worked so hard for, Kai had slaved away over that fucking spell, memorizing every single syllable and for what; for his father to deny him his birthright? Well he couldn’t allow that. 

So slipping away from the sleeping child and carefully stepping past candy wrappers Kai made his way out of the room and made a determined bee line for his father’s study. Kai wasn’t stupid; he knew killing Roseanne was just an excuse for his father to cancel the merge but that the idiotic woman had taken a swift left to whatever the original plan had been. He needed to know what his father was up to. He snooped through each draw and cabinet he could with no joy, which was until he found his father’s ledger…

‘15/6/92

My fears about Annora have thankfully lessened with time. The girl seems to have more control over her powers of late and has warmed to the rest of the family. For a while there I feared that Kai had quickly turned the girl against us all. Their connection however still holds doubt in my mind, he’s taken such an interest in the girl and her power, while she seems to find some sort of foreign comfort with him. 

I will train her to be a true leader and I will rid the child of the hold Kai has over her. It’s sickening and only further proves the lengths he is willing to stoop in order to obtain power. 

He must be stopped. We will stop him. 

So mot it be.’ 

Kai sneered at the page before him then quickly flipped to the latest entry while taking a seat, cross legged on his father’s desk.

‘8/5/94

It’s gotten worse. 

Kai’s hold over Annora has become impenetrable. Ever since Christmas she clings to him like glue, completely unaware she is nothing but a tool to that boy. I almost pity her. 

Roseanne believes we should simply finish what her coven started; I however believe the girl can still be of use. However with Josette and Malachi’s twenty-second birthday just days away I’m more than a little weary. We’ve already worked so hard, from the moment we discovered what Kai was we worked to right the wrong. 

Despite Roseanne’s worries we will stick to the plan. Kai’s madness is already well known to the coven, once his corruption of Annora is discovered they’ll have no choice but to agree to send him to Dowager. The merge will be canceled so then Lucas and Olivia will take their rightful place, one of them will lead. And without Kai’s influence Annora will blossom into a powerful asset and one day marry into the coven, making us stronger.

So mot it be.’

White hot blood boiling rage raced through him. 

So this was their plan?

It wasn’t something they thought of after Annora arrived like he’d suspected, it was so much worse. They’d been plotting against him his whole life, having child after child until he and Jo could be replaced.

How dare they?!

What gave them the right to take it all away from him? What gave those little brats the power to take what was rightfully his?

As all this raced through his mind Kai screamed in anguish while ripping the ledger into confetti. He was blinded by his own hatred and before he knew what was happening he found Eloise stood at the door staring at him with puffy red eyes, all cried out as she glared “What the hell are you doing? Kai you know you can’t be in here you…”

It happened in an instant; one swift movement and Kai was stood in front of her, their father’s letter opener biting into his palm from the grip and a sticky warm crimson dripping from the point. 

Eloise didn’t understand what just happened, but gripped her neck as her knees gave way, wanting to slow the bleeding and looked up into her brothers eyes, seeming almost black in the hue of the shadows, his face void of emotion as he tilted his head, staring at her “well… I suppose this is one way to even the score. You can thank dear old dad for your untimely death El.”

The bloody letter opener feel to the floor with a clatter as her body slumped into the cool wood. So was so scared and confused and she couldn’t breathe… it hurt, it hurt so much… then, just a moment later, she’d never hurt again. 

Kai stared down to his sister’s warm corpse with a twinge of a smile before stepping over her, like you would trash in the street… he had a busy night ahead of him. 

He snook into Gretchen’s room first, he watched her for a second and he wondered when she’d finally cried herself to sleep as he wrapped the crisp white sheet he’d taken from the laundry room around her throat. Gretchen woke up only as Kai was using the sheet to pull her off the bed and out the room, she clawed at the tightly wound sheet crushing her windpipe as she tried to scream and kicked out. They stopped at the end of the hall for a few seconds, a few seconds of her brother not pulling hard on the sheet and she stood while pulling at her binds, only to be met with Kai’s dark cruel grin “I never did like you, Gretch.”

SNAP

That was the echoing sound as he threw her over the stair railing where he’d tied the other end of the sheet. 

Everything got so quiet, until the creek of Reece’s bedroom door whispered through the hallway “Hello, what are you guys doing?”

Kai slinked back into the shadows as his brothers footsteps neared with another sheet he’d wrapped around himself like a cape, now his new murder weapon “Gretchen, is that you?” 

“Guess again little bro, I’m afraid Gretchen’s kind of tied up at the minute.” These words were whispered into the boys ear as the sheet was forced around his neck and the next thing he knew the floor had vanished beneath his feet and the pressure on his neck matched with his struggles the breathe made him swing from side to side… until he saw her, his sisters dead eyes staring off into the abyss while he struggled for just one more gasp of air only to slowly follow Gretchen to the other side. 

Kai hadn’t stayed to watch the show as he strolled down the hall, fingering his father’s hunting knife in his belt loop as he heard a noise from the far right bathroom facing the twin’s room. A sickly grin smeared across his face as the door opened and he swung the blade down and a high pitched scream echoed the large house. 

Blood. 

Dark red syrupy blood dripped down pale skin while big eyes stared up at him in horrified confusion “Kai?” 

He’d missed just enough to slash the child’s arm, he’d tried to divert his swing at the sight of that mass of crimson curls, but still she bled and cried from the shock and the pain. 

Dropping the blade Kai took the girls shoulders in a vice grip “what are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be asleep!”

Sniffling tears made her blue green eyes sparkle as she cradled her bleeding arm “I-I *sniff* n-n-needed the *sniff* ba-bathroom.”

He watched her for a moment, she was shaking like a leaf and blood was still pouring out of her arm “for god’s sake…” he tore off the slashed sleeve of her pajamas to bandage her arm. The bleeding slowed to a halt and Kai placed a quick kiss on wrapped wound before smiling up at the little redhead.

He moved his thumb to whip a tear from her cheek with a wide smile “there we go, all better. Now Annie-Bee I need you to be a good girl and go to your room and no matter what you hear you don’t come out. Because if you do then that little scrape will be the least of your worries, understand?”

The threat didn’t startle the girl, she just wiped her eyes before tilting her head curiously “Kai… who were you trying to hurt?”

“Anyone else, my little bee” He smiled brushing back her hair before she threw her arms around his neck, making him smile softly.

“I love you Kai.” Annora whispered into his ear, he pulled back slowly, a strange ache in his chest, a new sensation. That was happening a lot of late.  
“You MONSTER!” a voice screamed from the stairs. 

Josette glared wide eyed horror at her twin brother, who pretty much shoved the child clinging to him down the other end of the hall, making her actually fall over just as Jo lunged for him. 

Annora ran like she had been ordered, right into her bedroom door and barricaded it shut by magically pulling her wardrobe in front of it. Without thinking she grabbed her pillow and crawled under the safety of her bed, finding comfort in the darkness and quickly grabbing the walkman she’d stolen from Gretchen’s room and listening to the soft voice of some angry girl bad she didn’t know, just wanting to drown out the screams that had followed her down the hall.

Meanwhile as Annora ran like a good girl Kai had to deal with his hysterical twin sister who was trying very hard to punch him, hurt him in any way she could though her cloud of tears. While her brother itched for the cool of the blade he knew was inches from him, so with a hard shove Jo flew back from him and while she knelled to gain her bearings a ripping screaming pain tore though her abdomen. Jo’s breathe caught in her throat as she looked into her brother’s eyes, seeing her own horror pain stuck expression steering back at her from the cold blue orbs. 

“Now look what you made me do Sissy?” his tone was like he’d accidentally tripped her or something so minor, like scolding a child who’d fallen from a tree when being not to climb it. 

Tears streamed down her cheeks as her lip quivered, her bloody hand smearing over his shirt “Why?”

With his hand still clutching onto the handle of the knife Kai smirked at his twin sister before leaning into her ear with hushed tones “I never was good with competition…”

Pushing the knife further into her stomach Kai watched her eyes flutter to a close with the pain “Now stay down, don’t make me keep hurting you.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” Jo stared up at him through broken tears only to find him chuckling above her “Kill you? What, no sissy no, I mean how are we meant to merge if you’re dead? That’s just silly.”

SPLASH

The sound came from outside the nearby window, and peering out Kai saw Joey throwing stones into the pool and wondered how long his little brother had been out there. Judging by the boy’s vacant expression as he threw the stones Kai doubted he knew about his most recent wicked activities.

He barely spared his twin sister a glance before turning on his heel “Stick around; things are going to get pretty interesting…”

Once Kai made it to the back yard he looked over his little brother for any sign he knew what was actually happening inside their family home. If he knew anything he didn’t show it, just sat cross legged with a handful of stones in his hand, mindlessly throwing them into the clear water “what are you doing out here?”

“I needed to think… went for a walk.” Joey didn’t look to Kai as he took a seat beside the boy. 

“Let me guess, you needed to think about how much of a monster I am for killing mom right?” 

It was then that their gaze met; Joey shook his head so slightly if Kai would have blinked he’d of missed it “I don’t blame you for what happened…”

Now that made Kai’s brow frown in confusion “Mom, she kidnapped Annora and she… she drown her. She planned to kill her, it wasn’t some accident or anything, and she wanted her dead. Don’t get me wrong I’m not the kid’s biggest fan but… she’s just a little girl; yeah she ended up with all this power and shit and people are wigged out over it but she’s six years old for fucks sake. Six years old and our mother tried to drown her and dad… he knew, he knew mom was up to something I know it by the way he acted when she took Annora and he did nothing!”

SPLASH. PLOP. SPLASH

Joey angrily threw the rest of the stones into the water before meeting his brother’s stare “Roseanne was our mother but she killed that little girl… and you saved her Kai. You did what you had to do, and as much as i hate it, I can’t hate you for making the hard choice, not for this.” Placing a hand on Kai’s shoulder Joey offered him a sad half smile “I’m proud of you, bro.”

Kai didn’t know what to make of the situation, Joey and he had always had a healthy brotherly rivalry that was fun and entertaining, they didn’t talk like this about serious things. Safe to say Kai was taken aback and a little out of his wheelhouse at the moment. 

It was a beautiful moment.

BANG. BANG.

Both brothers looked up to the high window looking down on the pool and saw the last thing they expected was to see was Jo, her bloodied hand print smeared on the window, sobbing hard as she screamed for Joey to run. 

Kai looked from the high bloodied window to Joey, while that familiar rage returned. He no longer wanted to kill his brother, well this one at least… but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t. 

So as Joey went to stand and run to his sister’s aid, Kai quickly gripped the back of his head before shoving his face completely into the pool. 

All the time he never took his eyes from the window, watching his helpless sister break and fall back to the floor as a sobbing mess. Turning his attention back to the task at hand Kai took a seat on his brothers back as he thrashed and squirmed under him. His brow frowned in annoyance, I mean come on they just had this moment and yeah Kai was killing him but it’s not like he wanted him dead, yeah he had to die, but Kai still didn’t understand why the boy was fighting him, he’d saved him for last before the grand finally of the twins. 

He actually liked the kid and he was fighting him? 

The ungrateful little bastard…

Once the spasms stopped Kai shoved Joey's head for extra reassurance that the boy was dead before rolling him back onto the grass to see his glazed over eyes and still chest. “Sorry kiddo, well you know, kind of…”

Kai pat Joey’s wet shirt before heading back into the house. No rest for the wicket.

On the way inside he grabbed the bat his mother kept in the kitchen cabinet. Spinning the corpses hanging from the staircase in an almost dance as he passes them by and slowly drags the baseball-bat up each step behind him and he heard little feet running around above him. Meanwhile Jo hand managed to crawl away from the window overlooking Joey’s corpse and toward the Twin’s room, she needed to protect them, keep them safe like she couldn’t her other sibling’s.   
Once she got to their door she fell hard on her back only for their door to breeze open reveling empty beds “Josette…?”

At the sound of her brothers voice Jo crawled once more down the hall, knowing where the two youngest always liked to hide “where are they Jo?”

She fell just meters from her destination, but his voice was getting closer so looking down at the knife hanging out of her gut Jo tugged to get it out. She needed to move, she needed to stand and save her brother and sister… she just had to. 

Somehow she got to her feet, adrenaline, magic or sheer will power she did it. After limping through the pain into their parents’ bedroom she saw them; the tops of their little blonde heads poking out from over the bed. 

Uninjured, alive…

Time moved in a blur as she hid under the bed beside them, hearing Kai grow nearer, so she did the only thing she could she hid them, hid them with magic.   
The look of utter anger in Kai’s eyes as he flipped the bed and trashed the room brought more pain than the stab would in her belly. What happened to that sweet boy she used to play with, who would kiss her cuts better and did everything he could to make his family proud?   
Where did her brother go?

As his foot kicked her in the fresh would she no longer cared, she just wanted him gone… “RUN!”

He followed after the twins seeming almost annoyed, leaving his sister to bleed all over the bedroom floor. Jo didn’t understand how all this had happened, yes she knew her parents were surpassing Jo and Kai for leadership and she was actually kind of happy about it, she didn’t want to die, but she also didn’t want to lose any of her siblings either. 

Yeah, that turned out well. 

However that didn’t matter anymore, Kai, her brother, or the thing that was left in his wake had to be stopped, she had no choice, it was him or the rest of them; what was left of them anyway. So she had an idea, a dangerous and clever idea. Josette took hold of the knife that still dripped with her blood and pushed out every single ounce of magic inside her, forcing it into the blade. With that she stood and ran, she had to be quick, she had to outsmart her deranged brother and she had to do it now… before it was too late.


	8. Chapter 8

It was the hardest thing in the world for her to endure, watching him go… watching the pain and confusion as they ripped him away from her under the guise of giving him the very thing he wanted most. 

Just hours before he’d come to her room like a giddy child on Christmas Eve, telling her how everything was going to work out, he swung her around the room and danced with the child before heading down stairs to perform a little home surgery on his sister, her spleen had ruptured and needed out, so as the good brother he was Kai merrily removed the organ and stitched her up. Not before she’d locked away the twins with more protection charms than she thought she knew. 

Annora had warn her favorite yellow dress and had a black ribbon holding up half of her crimson curls, she wanted to look nice for the Merge, it was a big deal after all. However something was wrong, she saw that tight lipped frown on Kai’s face before the shadow of Joshua appeared from the tree line. 

“KAI!”

She wanted nothing more than to run to him, to save him, but three figures she’d almost forgotten appeared around her muttering their own magic “mom?”  
Annora didn’t know what do to, she tried to cast a protection spell, anything, anything to save him but words escaped her, she could barely move let alone speak as her mother, an almost mirror image of the young girl, and her two uncles chanted apart from the Gemini’s. She could see him across the trees, laid out on the floor in agony, and then with a blinding white light he was gone. The chanting stopped and Annora’s world crumbled.

She pushed past her estranged mother to the spot where Kai had been just moments before, clawing at the floor and scanning around every figure before turning to Joshua and screaming “Where is he? What did you do?!”

Joshua stared down at the girl with nothing but contempt “You… that monster is gone, somewhere he can never harm anyone ever again.”  
Tears streamed like a faucet down the little redheads cheeks as she shook her head in utter denial “no, NO! Bring him back! G-Give him back t-to me! I need him, please… please!”

A shadow slowly dropped beside the heartbroken girl “Annora?”

She looked up to find her mother’s dark green eyes staring down at her “Mom, mommy. Please… Kai, yeah he did wrong but it’s not his fault! He’s broken, they broke him. Please mom… he saved me, he loves me.”

“Annora, honey… Malachi can’t,... sociopaths don’t love. That's what he is, don't you see? He’s a monster and you were his pet…he used you, honey. I’m so sorry this happened. I’m sorry we have to do this, but you’ve chosen such a dark path. We had no choice.” Danielle moved to try and hold her daughter, god how she’d missed her, those eyes that screamed with such emotion. 

Annora had other ideas; shoving her mother into the ground the six year old glared fire “just like you had no choice when you tried to kill me? I didn’t do anything wrong, you say he’s a monster but Kai’s never tried to gut me, so yeah, yeah maybe he is a monster but he’s my monster so you bring him back, bring him back or you’ll be sorry!”

Wiping away a tear that never fell, Danielle shook her head at the child “oh Annora… what have you become?”

“It’s time Danie.” The older woman looked from her brothers to her child before turning her back on the girl with a deep sigh of anguish. 

This did little to smite Annora’s anger; she raised her hand ready to hex both covens however as the words left her lips nothing happened. Not a damn thing.  
Except of course for the sharp sudden pain from the needle bring shoved into her neck. Annora didn’t understand what was happening, but as one of her uncle’s tried to grab her Annora made a run for it. 

Racing back to the bloodied house Annora’s world started spinning, her head filling with dizziness as she tried her best to stay up right. She barely noticed the blood she slipped in as she somehow got to the lounge. Annora was scared, so scared, she didn’t know what was happening or what these people planned to do with her now. Would they kill her? It’s not like they hadn’t tried before. Tears once again fell hard as she hid behind the sofa, hoping the soft leather would swallow her up and protect her from harm, she saw it then, the broken glass of the picture frame and Kai’s smiling face staring back at her.   
With that picture staring over at her Annora felt her heart breaking… he was gone. 

Kai was gone. 

Then as everything finally slipped into a twisted sea of blurriness she managed to grip the picture, because if she was going to die then Kai’s face was the last thing she wanted to see. 

\-------------------------------------------1994 PRISON WORLD---------------------------------------------

Kai woke up alone among the trees as the sun began to reappear, he didn’t know what had happened but seeing as how the woods were abandoned Kai all but ran towards the house… he was filled to the brim with a familiar rage, even as he found the house deserted also. 

He didn’t understand what had happened, how in a single moment his entire coven, including his devious twin sister and terrible excuse for a father, had vanished into thin air. However he planned to make them pay as he climbed into the family car and drove into town… 

Not that it did him much good, the town was deserted. Every store, every car, every home he peered into was empty. Panic quickly spread through every vein in the young siphon body… 

“No. no this isn’t happening… he wouldn’t dare. He couldn’t… Dad, Dad, what the fuck did you do!.... AAHHHHAAAHHH!”

\-----------------------------------------------REAL WORLD---------------------------------------------

Annora woke up into a room she didn’t know, in an unfamiliar bed, the walls were stained in damp and if the clutter and noise was anything to go by the girl wasn’t alone. Her head was pounding and a sickness coiled into her stomach. When she finally managed to sit up was when she noticed the IV hanging out of her arm, without thinking she ripped out the needle blood squirted all over her dress before she’d managed to wrap it with some cloth torn from the bedding.   
She didn’t understand what was happening, where she was, why she wasn’t dead!

Annora decided to walk around and try to find out where she was and how the hell she was going to get out. 

The six year old walked the unfamiliar hall’s passing people by with little to no interest. When she saw the backdoor a spring jumped into her heart… however it wouldn’t last long as her weak body couldn’t open the door, she groaned in frustration before muttering a small spell only for the door to remain as she found it.   
Locked.

“That won’t work… nice try though.” Annora turned on her heel like lightning to see on older blonde woman wearing a worn blue dress. 

She strode into the room like she was very much at home before leaning against the paint chipped island. Annora stood firm, with a fierce determination in her stare while childish fear crept up the back of her neck “Where am I? Who are you?”

The blonde laughed before taking a bite of her barely their nails “wow you really are new, I’m Lou and you are in the beautiful home of Dowager Fauline, home to the insane and unworthy witches of New Orleans. So which are you sweet-pea?”

“Dowager?” Annora remembered how Joshua had threatened to send Kai to that place, the paleness on his face at the threat. This was bad, very bad. 

“I… I need to get out of here!” Annora turned and tried the shake the door off its hinges when that and few spells she could mutter didn’t work Annora felt a strange pit in her stomach before screaming a deifying scream, so powerful that it forced her magic to the crest and shattered the glass of the backdoor whilst also launching it across the lawn and was impaled on the large gated fence. 

Some people came running after the stunt to try and restrain the girl, they dragged her kicking and screaming from the kitchen, Lou looking on in an almost 'I told you so' attitude. 

\---------------------------------------------PRISON WORLD-----------------------------------------------

It had been three days… well the same day three times so Kai pretty much got the gist of what the hell was going on and why he was all alone.   
His coven had created an entire reality stuck on repeat just for little old him. God why didn’t they just kill him?

Oh, because that would have been kinder or whatever right. 

He’d searched through each page of every spell he could find in the house, even the ones his father would hide but the only mention of a Prison World was the one that had been created a century before he was born but that was it; just a brief mention, not the actual spell or even a hint to how the holy fuck he was meant to get out of the stupid place.

He ended up burning the house down after a little tantrum and throwing the lit candelabra across the room. It soothed him for a moment, watching the room engulf in flames and when he sat outside under the starlit night sky, sipping a soda and watched his childhood home burn to ash calmness overcame him. It was almost as if burning down that house unchained him, if just for a moment. 

However with the repeating sunrise the house was rebuilt… no not rebuilt, never burned, even his siblings blood still stained the walls. It was like he’d never done it. 

His actions meant nothing here. 

So Kai decided do something he’d always wanted to do, he snooped. He went though his sister’s diaries. They were pretty boring really, Eloise was mostly about boys, Gretchen about resentment and Jo’s was all complaining. I mean seriously the girls a powerful witch and all she does is moan about how she doesn’t fit it? Now something’s just not right there. 

Kai found weed in Joey’s room, naughty boy, and a lot of porn in Reese’s, mostly older women, you know wrinkles and stuff. Not really Kai’s thing but whatever did it for the guy, right?

Then after that he decided to actually get back to getting out of that place. He needed to search the rest of the coven’s homes, the family vault…any trace of his family’s tainted fingerprints. 

\------------------------------------------REAL WORLD-------------------------------------------

Annora woke up in the same room as before, her vision blurred and an IV shoved back into her hand, but this time she wasn’t alone, Lou, the blonde woman was sat in an old tattered chair near the boarded window with her bare feet resting on a pile of trash bags Annora guessed was her clothes from the lack of wear “rise and shine sleeping beauty. Bout damn time, I almost figured they’d killed you.”

Lou stood with an unsure stride before stretching her hand out to the girl “here, this was on the floor, figured it was yours.”  
Annora took the crumpled piece of paper and once she opened it broke down in tears; it was Kai, a picture of his charming smirk and mischievous glint in those baby blues. She must have still had it in her hand when they carted her off to that horrid place. 

She just couldn’t take it, she didn’t understand what was supposed to happen now, Kai had become more than a boy she’d lived with, a teacher, a brother. He was a part of her; he’d carved out her soul and branded it as his. How was she meant to live the rest of her life without him? How was she meant to survive?  
The girl had been so distraught that she hadn’t even noticed Lou pulling her close and stroking her hair, soothing and calm words making her cry harder. If this had been Kai he’d be awkward and trying to get her to smile with some stupid bribe… she looked down at the picture as every piece of her heart broke and shattered, she could feel it all and it was worse than anything she’d ever felt before. 

“Hey now, it’s ok… well it’s not but you’ll be ok.” Lou was trying to sooth the girl but all it did was make her cry harder. 

That was until Annora remembered this woman is nothing but a stranger to her, why was she being so kind after letting those others drag her away “what do you want from me?”

Lou looked at the child with almost broken expression “oh honey, they hurt you bad huh?”

Annora didn’t understand, she just knew she was in a strange place with strange people and the one person she actually counted on was gone. She didn’t know where or how just that he was gone. This woman offered her comfort and some sort of companionship and Annora just didn’t want to be alone… 

Then she remembered the IV in her arm and turned to Lou “what is this?”

She tried to forget her tears, tried to be strong “a solution taken from the Lobelia’s that grow out back, they usually give us pills but I guess you’re a special case… it makes it almost impossible to get the magic juices flowing.”

Annora hated all of it, she knew she was trapped in that place; she could feel the magic and almost see the shimmer of the force filed locking them all inside the grounds. 

But Annora made a promise, a promise that she would escape that place and find Kai and together, they’d finish what was started.

\---------------------------------------PRISON WORLD------------------------------------------

Kai stole a big black tuck right from a lot up the street with as many supplies as he could manage to fit into the back, the Gemini Coven’s reach was far and he knew he had a lot of ground to cover, plus making some choice photo opportunities along the way. 

He’d looted the store and even snagged a few weapons from the old hunting lodge in town, mostly because he just wanted to trash the stuffy old relic of a building. He remembered how he used to break into that place as a boy, just to course some trouble, to watch them trip over themselves and see his father drink himself into a stupor.

It was his little secret and Kai kept it. 

He didn’t know why, didn’t even know if Joshua knew Kai knew what he got up to on those long winter nights. Regardless he’d kept his secret, maybe in hopes of some sort of acceptance, more likely as leverage to loom over the old man. 

Kai wasn’t much of the sentimental type, but as he ransacked his family home for whatever he could use, he stalled outside a door only to kick it open lightly. It was Annora’s room, his little Annie-Bee. She hadn’t even crossed his mind until that moment; it was curiosity that made him wonder what would become of his little witch. Picking up her favorite stuffed rabbit a small smile took hold as thought of the outcomes; would they kill her? No, she was too valuable and now far too powerful for that, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Would they finally succeed in turning the girl against him? He doubted it, she was loyal and he’d bought her eternal loyalty with the life of his mother. He knew that. 

A sick and cruel smile emerged as he taught of how well he’d trained her, tainted her, but at the corners of that sinister smirk were biting edges of an actual smile as he remembered how that itsy-bitsy little firecracker had brought the oh so great Gemini leader to his knees, how many times she defended and defied for him. 

He almost missed her… he thought as he twirled the silver rune wrapped around his neck and without warning a white shudder ripped though his mind and shook away the sight of the room around him…

He now saw a grubby room he wouldn’t keep a dog. The edges of his vision blurred like a dream, then he saw it, a mass of crimson curls sleeping with a troubled frown and dried tears on her cheeks. A blond woman he didn’t know stood over the child, seemingly caressing her aura with a sinister smile “Soon, sweet-pea.”

“Kai…” Annora mumbled in her sleeping haze. 

Kai was thrust back into the yellow painted room, his breath quickened while he looked down at the necklace in shock “What the fuck was that?”


	9. Chapter 9

It had been almost a year since Kai had been taken and Annora had been imprisoned in the Asylum, the little girl had learned the rules quickly, the crazies with the scars were in charge and liked their housemates submissive. To doors were locked with enchantments so only certain people were allowed to go outside, not that you could move past the large iron gates but fresh air was its own reward. 

They’d actually allowed her to come off the IV after the first few tantrums, only if she took double the dose of everyone else; but it was better than being poked full of holes all the time. 

Lou had been helping her as well; the older witch would sit with her watching cartoons, play games, keep her safe from the more loony witches of the asylum. Annora was thankful for that, Lou actually reminded her a little of her father, he’d always made time for her, never too busy to take time with his little girl. 

Well, before the whole trying to kill her thing. 

Despite trying to stay under the radar of the freaky looking witches that ran the old house Annora hadn’t given up on trying to get out, trying to refocus her magic despite the Lobelia in her system; not that it really did much to help. 

She got used to the noise and strange faces, but when one of her ‘housemates’ had tried to steal her necklace Annora’s magic bubbled to the surface and the child watched in horror as the woman’s arm fall to the floor in a pool of blood as she screamed in utter agony. Sean, one of the scarred caretakers, had locked Annora in a broom closet for two days after that little stunt. 

She wasn’t scared though; small dark spaces had always been her escape. So, as she kneeled on the cold, hard floor and leaned into the wall Annora fiddled with her treasured necklace and somehow it was ok, she almost felt him with her…

\------------------------PRISON WORLD--------------------------

He could see her, a blurred version of her shoved into a cupboard but he could still see her. As he’d watched her maim that thief a pang of pride filled the siphon’s cold chest. 

He’d watched her on and off since arriving at that empty world. Sometimes the lack of people to belittle and control would get on his nerves. I mean he usually had so many people around to bend to his will now there was no one. 

He’d been traveling around the country for roughly six months if his count was right. He’d been to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota; however at that moment in time he’d taken up housing in the white house for a few days. Even took some pretty cool photo’s, but after trying to develop them himself in a dark room they had to be retook twice before he got the hang of it, but hey he’d always been a fast learner. 

His travels hadn’t been completely pointless; Kai had managed to locate the family vault that only a few in the coven even knew existed. Turns out the original collective of the coven hadn’t been anywhere near Portland, according to some old family ledgers he’d found at his aunt Jillian’s house in Montana the coven ran across the country to escape the witch trials that had plagued their home of Salem. It had taken the decipher text his cousin Patrick had in Washington to actually read the damn ledgers but hey at least now he had a lead. 

The family vault was a myth; a tall tale children would be told, where all the old and dangerous magic was hidden from undesirable hands. 

Safe. 

Kai wasn’t that gullible, he’d heard things he shouldn’t have, listened through cracked doors so he knew things. Like the fact that the vault was very real. 

So tucking away his necklace, his window to the real world Kai smiled with glee… he was going to have a long trip ahead of him. 

\----------------REAL WORLD-------------

Annora was finally out of the cupboard, she’d been told to be good or they’d put her back on the IV. That had become a constant threat over the girl, it was the only why they could hurt her… they tried to whip her, the marks still sore to touch on her back but she didn’t seem to get the message so they would threaten her with the only thing that made a dent.

Yes the cane had hurt, had made her bleed so hard and unable to lay down right for over a week. However it didn’t do much else, if anything it made her feel almost numb, having the pain consume her and her heartache fade just for a moment. The IV, well that left her in a daze and loosing time, she was barely able to see the hand in front of her face with how effective the herb solution was. 

She hated it; hated losing herself like that. 

After the first time Annora hand glared deathly daggers to Lou, asking the older woman why she did nothing as they drugged her but she understood eventually. If Lou had gotten involved then they’d both be punished and who would watch over her as she lay almost comatose. 

Annora had almost gotten used to the noise of the house, she knew these people weren’t put here lightly, they did bad, terrible things… so as she sat in front of the television, not really paying much attention to the poorly written soap as she turned to Lou, the older woman putting small braids into the child’s hair “why did they put you here?”

Lou’s eyes widened with shock at the question, but chuckled as she carried on with her braiding “well, look at you Sweet-pea, getting all nosy… well if you must know I got sick, I didn’t want to die so I played with some stuff I shouldn’t, got better… then they locked me in here to spend out the rest of my days.”

“That’s not fair…”

Annora looked up at her career, she was healthy now… barely even seemed to catch a chill never mind anything else, it was then she actually started to wonder on Lou’s age. She was obviously in her late thirties but over their time in the house Lou had told the little redhead all about her old life, her real life. 

Her full name was Louisa Flank, she lost her parents in a fishing accident when she was eleven, married a man named Andrew when she was sixteen and had three children: Georgina, Christine and Philip. 

That was it. 

Lou didn’t talk too much about her past, mostly about magic and rules and crap that didn’t actually matter. It was busy talk because there wasn’t much else to do. 

But something just didn’t feel right; Annora had felt Lou watching her more closely those last few days. It sent an unnerving chill up her spine. 

Something just felt wrong to her…

\------------------PRISON WORLD-----------------

Kai had been driving for hours; he wasn’t even totally sure what state he was in. 

The sun started to set and as the darkness crawled across the sky Kai felt an itch crawling up the back of his neck. That familiar itch of boredom… it was moments like that that made him almost miss his family, running around coursing havoc and creating some almost entertaining drama. In the prison world there was nothing, nothing new, nothing entertaining… just more of the same. 

It was mind numbing really.

So as an alternative he broke into a fire station and played with the tuck, play a little dress up and then slide down the poll… it was fun, for a little while. He then took to watching some video’s he’d swiped from a few video stores. 

And as he lay watching David Bowies Labyrinth Kai couldn’t help but almost relate to it somehow… a kid shoved into a different world searching for something to get out. Well then there was the whole moral side and wanting back the annoying brat she wished away in the first place. To be honest he doesn’t understand why Sarah didn’t take the crystal, all her dreams come true for the life of one sibling, hell he was more than willing to off all of his for that deal. 

He actually didn’t care about that, he thought Jareth was cool and he noticed how the guy started to almost like Sarah… it kind of reminded him of his twisted relationship with Annora, she was a tool, a game to be won… somehow she got to him. Not like he actually cared for the girl, if push came to shove he’d gut her like a drug mule he didn’t doubt that, he just wouldn’t be too happy about it. 

That’s what concerned him, the first few days trapped in that never ending loop the little firecracker hadn’t even been a cliff note in the back of his mind, lately though he wondered about her more and more. Kai knew he could easily suck the magic out of the rune and just teleport to Salem but then if anything went wrong he was screwed, his window closed forever… an eternity of loneliness. 

As the staircases on the screen turned upside down Kai gripped the necklace, waiting for that now familiar white blur. 

She was laid on the floor of the busy house, her legs flying in the air as she read some old musty book with torn leather cover. Despite its age Annora seemed to be enjoying it, Kai took a seat beside the girl, watched her play with the golden bee still hanging around her neck. 

She had this little smile on her face and was wearing overall’s, her crimson curls pulled into a tight braid “Dinner!” Was loudly declared by a large man with an old scar on his face.

Kai laughed as he looked at the brute “Well hello to you to ugly.”

He watched Annora groan with a roll of her big bug eyes before seemingly hiding her book and heading to the door “Better not be that dog food they tried to pass for meatloaf again…”

He watched her walk out the room with a small smirk “later Annie-Bee”

Then he was alone again. Back in the endless hell of forever, his head hitting the pillow as Bowie lulled him to dreamless black sleep. 

\-----------REAL WORLD------------

Annora took only a few steps out of the room for dinner, before quickly doubling back with a double jump in her heart. She looked into the room and found it as   
she left it, empty.

“Annora? You coming or what?” Lou rounded the corner with a swing of her arm onto the girls shoulder. 

Her baby blues scanned ever corner she could think to look “I thought I heard… never mind. Please tell me it’s not meatloaf?”

“Lasagna!” 

“Thank god…”

Lou quirked an eyebrow into the empty room before shaking it off and following Annora into the Dining room with a whisper in the girls ear “hey I have a surprise for you, meet me after lights out in the upstairs bathroom.”

The young girl’s eyes widened with excitement “what is it?” 

Lou chuckled before running over to her seat “now that would be telling…”


	10. Chapter 10

The days began the merge into one, a blur of content repetition…. Annora had almost gotten used to it. Dowager Cottage was what you’d expect, dark and cruel and full of callous but then that night Lou had asked Annora to meet her she found something new, something interesting. 

It was a locked door, a lock; that according to Lou, not even the Kindred had a key to. The moment Annora took a step near it she could feel the power flowing out. Like a magical battery pack. 

She’d never noticed it before, her bedroom being on the other side of the house and she wasn’t sure if she’d actually been to that part before. 

“You could channel it… I know how strong you are sweet pea. You just need a boost. If you can do this then we could get out. We could maybe even find your little friend; the one from the picture?”

Lou’s words had echoed inside Annora head for more than a few days, she had a chance, a chance to actually be free… she just needed time. 

\-----Prison World------

Kai had finally arrived in Salem; unfortunately he had no idea where the vault actually was. 

At least he’d managed to narrow it down to one town rather than the entire country. Still it was going to be hard work, not like he didn’t have the time to spare.

However it was more than a little irritating, yeah he had a search around the Salem Museum and the other town monument’s. He found it ironic that a town known for persecuting witches was so invested in promoting them. Of course he knew that most of the people that got burned alive weren’t actually witch’s, because seriously what self respecting witch would actually allow some uppity mortal to burn them alive. That’s just stupid!

So Kai searched through the town to no avail before taking up in the nicest house he could find and whipping himself some dinner while going over the texts that led him to the old hypocritical town. 

There was some sort of stupid riddle he’d managed the get out of the code: The founding roots where the lonely oak lays holds the oldest of magic where only kin can find.

It was gibberish to him. It almost made him wish his sniveling brother Reese was there, who prided himself on these types of things. 

Almost. 

He’d figure it out, after all he was Kai Parker… and he always won. One way or another. 

\-----Real World-----

Annora was sat in the living room surrounded by the normal loons watching cartoons while Lou was on kitchen duty, while she watched Scooby-Do she was also reading an old book she found about a man named Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it reminded her of Kai in a strange way… but in all honesty she’d finished reading it weeks ago. What she was actually doing was reading over the notes she’d made in the margins. Spells and instructions she’d managed to scribble down when no one was looking… she had to try and fight off the effects of the drugs. She was going to just not take them like Lou had been pushing for, but Annora knew that the kindred would find out… they had a habit of doing that. 

“You, Red!”

Annora looked up to see a blond teenage boy with the visible mark of the kindred on his face “m-me?”

He yanked her up with a roll of his eyes and explained while he dragged her into the lobby “its drop off day… be a good girl and put some stuff away and someone might actually get garden privileges.” he yanked her close staring into her eyes darkly “take even a crumb you’ll be stuck on that IV for a month.”  
The guy shoved her hard into the kitchen. Lou and a few of the other less crazy witches were working on dinner, but there was a small mountain of boxes near the pantry that Annora assumed was for her. Drop off day was a once a week deal, a group of people would show up with a truck load of food, toilet paper, stuff like that. It wasn’t unusual for the Kindred to pull in the not so nutty witchs of the house to do the chores, it was almost a reward system. If you did the chores well you’d get something in return, paints, books, games, new clothes that weren’t torn or stained but if you took something while working, if you misbehaved then things got very nasty very quickly. Just a week ago Annora had stood in horror as they cut away every strand of a woman hair, even cutting into her scalp because she’d snaked two tins of peaches under her bed. 

They made sure the others got a good eyeful, a warning of what happened when you misbehaved.

The little witch could feel Lou’s stare from across the room. She’d been pushing, telling her that they had to hurry to get out, that if they waited too long they’d get caught… she said she didn’t want them to hurt Annora if they figured it out. 

All the pressure was actually starting to get to her, I mean come on she’s six years old!

However it was starting to dawn on her that that didn’t matter there. Dowager isn’t exactly a place for children, this was more than an Asylum it was an oubliette, a place you put people to forget about them. 

And she was going to learn that the hard way…

That night she was reading over her notes and chants, jotting down what she could without being caught. All of this was while being sat outside the locked door, she’d gotten a stare or two for a second from passing Kindred, however at her quiet little figure merely seems to be sat in a quiet corner reading, they passed her by. 

Lou joined her after her prep for dinner had been done; she sat across the hall way from the little girl, twitching her fingers and toes in a way that reminded Annora of Josette before her morning coffee “so sweet pea, how’s it running? Are we smooth sailing?” 

The little redhead never even looked up from her book “hardly, I need to get my strength up… try and work over the drugs. Even channeling… whatever’s back there is taking it out of me.”

“I told you just stop taking the pills, stash them in your sock draw or something… listen to me sweat pea, this needs to happen and fast. The Kindred are already itchy around you, and they ain't stupid.” 

Their eyes locked for a moment and Annora saw something there, just for a second she saw a darkness she’d known all too well but like a flash of light it was gone. Lou burring the strange moment with a weak smile and kind stare “you can do this kiddo, I know you can.”

Annora just wasn’t so sure.

\-----Prison World-----

Days passed and Kai was getting more than a little frustrated with the stupid riddle. 

That was until he finally noticed a very old looking tree with a plaque on it declaring the tree the last remaining Oak of the forest after the town was founded. Well now that’s the first part of that stupid riddle figured out now he just had to figure out the rest… 

Stood under the large tree Kai wondered how he was meant to actually access the vault as he muttered to himself “Kin, kin the riddle said kin which means family… family… family magic? Well that’s useless… hum if I was a scared old little witch what would I do to stash my stuff?”

Then he thought of something his father had once said to him and Josette, they’d been fighting in while Joshua tried to go over some lesion or other with them. 

He’d pulled them part and glared daggers towards the two as he spoke “you should know better, your family, your blood… there’s no blood like families blood.”

A sick half smile crept onto Kai’s face as he remembered those words before pulling a switch blade he stole from some house he was crashing in from his pocket. With little more than a wince Kai made a neat slice across his palm and dripped it onto the ground… nothing happened. 

The siphon grumbled and squeezed his hand into a fist, forcing out more blood but still nothing. “Damn it!”

He kicked at the bloodied ground, forcing himself to fall back and his bloodied hand to graze the old tree, his ass hitting the thankfully soft grass. 

Kai was more than ready the cuss out the very tongue in his head before he saw the thick bark of the tree fleck away to reveal a black tunnel burrowed deep into the earth. 

“Well, well, well… down the rabbit hole we go.” A smile crept onto his face before brushing himself of and merrily skipping down the tunnel with a whistle.  
He seemed to be walking into the darkness for hours until he finally saw some sort of light flicker to life, he raced towards it and found a cavern of treasures and a large fire pit that bounced off a network of mirrors to lighten the room. 

Circling himself Kai smirked with proud glee “well now I guess it’s time to get my hands all dirty.”

\----Real World----

Annora was laid out on the soft cool grass gazing up to the bright stars in the large garden of her prison, it was the first glimpse of the outside world that she’d had since being locked in that god forsaken place. It was like the first time she tasted chocolate, something dreamlike she didn’t realize she craved until it wasn’t there anymore. 

“Having fun out here Sweet pea?” 

She hadn’t even noticed Lou coming out to find her, to be totally honest she’d been avoiding the older woman, she was sick of all the pressure she was putting on her to get them out… 

So the little redhead just lay still, looking up to the beautiful stars “it’s nice out here; peaceful.”

Lou groaned and leaned against the tree with her arms folded “so I guess we’re not getting out of here tonight then… to bad there’s meant to be this pretty sweet meatier shower later.”

Annora couldn’t take it anymore as she stood up and stormed past the blonde “I’m not a magic pump Lou; I’m not strong enough yet!”

Normally the older woman would have chased after the kid with a hand full of sweet apologies but not then, no that night Lou stayed and hummed to herself with a tight lipped frown “well… looks like we’re just going to have to do this the hard way.”

\---Prison World---

Kai had been searching for hours with the help of the fire light and had finally managed to find a book that spoke about prison worlds. It told him how rare it was for Prison worlds to be evoked as they took so much power to create. They also told of how the spell required some sort of key, the ascendant, and a strong bloodline to bind the spell. 

Kai was grinning ear to ear as the path to finally get out of that damned place revealed itself, it had took him over a year but still, it was almost over…  
Or so he thought. 

As he kept reading Kai began to notice a pattern, an unnerving pattern. When the bloodline used to bind the spell was mentioned something kept popping up, the name Bennett. The collaborators of the original spell…

Bennett. 

He needed a Bennett… he didn’t have a Bennett.

Kai launched the book across the room, tipping over the table as he screamed and roared and ransacked the vault. In his rage he’d managed to tip the fire pit as the room lit and the blaze quickly spread. 

Kai fell to his knees in despair. He was trapped. Truly trapped in an empty eternity, doomed to relive the same day forever… so as the flames surrounded him Kai remained frozen to the spot. 

“FFUUUCCCKKKK!”

\----Real World----

Annora was just getting a drink of water, that’s all, that why she’d wondered late at night into the bathroom, one of the few with an actual view of the outside with bars on the window rather than boarded. Just a drink of water…

“Hey…”

She spun around like lightning but breathed a sigh of relief at Lou stood at the door “Hey, you scared me.”

A smile crept onto Lou’s face, a smile Annora was unfamiliar with, as the older woman closed to rickety old door “yeah, I do that sometimes.”  
A shiver ran up Annora’s spine at the look on her friends face “Lou?”

“You know it could have been better than this. I was going to take you for pizza, ice cream, get you a new dress; really spoil you. Like I did with my kids before…” she walked closer to the girl as she pulled out a strange blade, it looked almost like a spear, with carvings along the blade while the handle itself looked almost like bone. 

“Your kids?” Annora was backed up against the claw foot tub. 

Lou’s face fell for a second as she spoke in a numb tone “yeah, I mean they weren’t bad kids they just… they were always around you know, reminding me how they took my youth, my beauty, my whole fucking life. I did try to love them, at first. Then, then I got sick… and well I just refused to die, not like that, some dirty, bald, pathetic mess!”

It dawned on Annora like a brick in a river, her lip quivered “you… you killed y-your own c-children?!”

A sickening laugh came from the woman’s lips “Duh, haven’t you been listening? Then what do I get for my troubles, thrown in this dump with a bunch of crackpot witch’s who were too weak to survive. Then one day, low and behold, there was you…” 

Lou pointed the blade at the shivering child with a cold grin as the little redhead slipped to the floor, cradling her knees “me? I-I don’t u-understand.”

“Annora Grove, the most powerful witch born into this generation turns up at our door, what are the chances? I knew I had to scoop you up before anyone started whispering in your ear… of cause I was hoping you’d have gotten us out of here but hey you win some you lose some. Anyway after I drain you I should be able to walk straight out the door.” 

Tears began to fall from Annora’s baby blues as she shook her head “Why? Why did you pretend to be my friend? Why not just kill me?”

A cruel chuckle came from Lou as she tried to brush a strand of hair from the sobbing girls face “oh silly girl, I was waiting for tonight, the meteor shower. I use the same celestial event I did eleven years ago to harvest the magic from your blood, after I drain you of course… you know it was almost too easy. I mean, you were so fucking needy! The way you cling to that stupid boy, going on and on, it’s pathetic. Seriously even for…”

The murderous witch’s sentence was cut short as Lou was flung hard against the tiled wall making it crack with the sheer force. Lou’s eyes widened with shock, she couldn’t move… not even an inch. 

Annora was suddenly stood up and her long crimson curls fell over her porcelain cheeks. Her eyes could be seen through her hair, the blue-green vanished, leaving a bright glowing white in their wake. “A-Annora, sweet pea…”

Where that little girl had sat sniveling now stood a creature of pure power and she was not a happy bunny. Her white eyes stared at her would be murderer with a tilt of her head “you’re not a very nice person Lou. But come on, you think you’re the first person who’s tried to kill me? Please, you’re not even the closest!”

The blade had fallen to the floor, Lou eyeing it like the last piece of cake at a birthday party. Annora however had other ideas, she kicked the blade away under the tub before magically slamming her ‘friend’ across the room several times, smashing her into each tiled wall with such force she knew she’d woken most if not all the house. Lou was then left floating in the middle of the room, her face dripping with blood as she gasped for breath “Annora…please…”

“Did your kids beg? Did you think I would? Now who’s pathetic?” the dainty little seven year old took a few steps closer to the traitorous bitch before her as she looked almost somber “it’s a cruel world… don’t you think?”

Before Lou had a chance to mutter a reply a defining scream roared through the house as blood splattered across the room, Lou’s shredded corpse fell to pieces on the floor, the door finally giving way to the kindred Annora hadn’t even noticed battering against the wood. They stood in horror at the sight, Lou’s murderous heart still floating midair as sticky red covered every inch of the yellowed bathroom. 

“What the hell did you do?” 

She couldn’t tell you which one of them asked the question as she stared at the heart and the meteors fell behind her “something good.”

“Annie-Bee”

She heard it, just for a second, then where the floating heart was stood a faint ghost like image of the only face she ever wanted to see again “Kai?!”

He smiled down to her, tender and mischievous; just as she remembered him before fading into nothing once again, leaving behind the faint scent of chard paper and burnt hair.

She wasn’t stupid, she knew it was the blood… she’d unwittingly cast a sacrificial spell, it had let her see him, hear him; just for a moment… he was there! 

The heart fell with a squelching sound to the floor as a sad yet hopeful little smile crept onto the girls lips and she skipped passed the Kindred. They followed her as she went into her room, her dream like daze seeming to engulf her. 

As the door closed and she changed from her bloodied pj’s and pulled the comforter high to cradle her Annora caressed her necklace with a quick kiss “sweet dreams Kai… we’ll be together again, I promise.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!TRIGGER WARNING!!!  
> !!!SELF HARM AND SEXUAL ASSAULT!!!

The years had been cold and lonely for both our estranged pair, however over that harsh time Annora had build up a sort of residence to her surroundings, a mental shield she’d created to protect herself.

After what had happened with Lou the Kindred made the decision to strike a deal with the deadly girl. She would take her ‘medicine’ without qualms, follow the house rules and not harm a member of their twisted little coven and in return she would get whatever her little heart desired, fresh clothes, the best food, new books...

It seemed to go by so fast and it was strange to think it sometimes, how long ago it had been since she saw him last, truly saw him, her beloved Kai. 

Yes, her devotion to him remained completely unwavering. Sometimes she thought it was one of the few things that kept her sane in that god forsaken place, because only the truly forsaken could end up in such a place, even a fourteen year old knew that. 

So when she saw a new face Annora glanced only for a second in mild interest. The unfamiliar Witch was curled up in a ball in the corner, eyeing every inch of the house and its residents. The fact that she was actually a girl could almost be missed by the excessive layers of dark, boyish clothes hanging of her slim frame, the silver rings and studs lining her left ear and two shiny mental balls bouncing light from her right eyebrow and then of course her jet black hair was shaved down to the scalp on one side, the remaining locks cut short just over the girls grey-blue eyes. 

Her soft feminine features and small hands are what gave her away. She could maybe have been Annora’s age…

However after a single moment the redhead passed the new witch without much more than a glance, her head held high as she strolled into the kitchen, her sunflower yellow dress sashaying behind her. Annora stood in silence with her hands folded behind her back, bouncing back on the balls of her bare feet as she waited for the leader of her ‘caretakers’ to notice the young witch’s presence.

Once she was finally noticed with a slight jump from the older woman she was asked “I’m guessing you have your ‘shopping list’ ready?”

Annora handed over the scrap of paper without looking at the older witch, instead eyeing the bird outside as it nuzzled merrily into its nest high up from the people below. She envied it, not for the usual ‘it can fly away’ thing you’d expect, no, she envied its ignorance to the vicious cruelty that lived just below it, she envied how content it was, how easy and simple its little life was…

She sort of hated it. 

“These are pretty intense readings, I’m not sure I want you having these.” Annora looked to the old hag and said not a word, just motioned to the paper with a spin of her finger in the air.

There it read on the other side of her list ‘Don’t make me ask twice.’

The last time shed been refused somehow all the windows and doors became bricked up for three days, even after they hooked her onto the IV, then the walls vanished like smoke with the promise of an amulet. 

The woman gave the young witch a biting glare before signing in defeat “Fine… but it’ll take a little while, shipments aren’t used to these sorts of things. Now get out of my sight.”

The dismissive manner wasn’t new for Annora, she knew the Kindred didn’t like having her stuck there, she made them afraid which in turn brought doubt to their authority. After seeing her defiance some of the others had actually tried to stand up… it didn’t end well.

And there might have been a time when Annora would have intervened but they knew the score, these people may have been insane but that didn’t mean they were blind. Annora had power; they didn’t, so to her they should have known better…

This had become one of her many reasoning’s through the years, that and the fact that these weren’t good people, they didn’t deserve her help. I guess she just sort of stopped caring about other people; it wasn’t worth the effort… well except for one at least.

She spent many hours a day locked away in her bedroom, reading and researching on everything and anything she could think of to try and find Kai, she’d tried countless spells over the years; Digging even into some of the dark arts. 

And what had it all gotten her? 

Nothing, yes she knew he wasn’t on this astral plane thanks to a very complex locator spell that had left her comatose for over a week. 

She had nothing, nothing but the knowledge that he was alive and that was enough for her… even locked in the decaying bones that was once a grand and luxurious home. Sat before the small shrine she’d created, with scented candles to drown out the stench of rotting damp that covers the walls she’d disguised with brightly colored sheets, his never fading, beautiful, cheeky smirk brought her hope, that picture, her necklace… they were her reminder that he was real, he was waiting for her to save him like he had saved her. 

He was more than a beautiful dream her mind had created to keep her alive… some days she forgot that. 

And that what she told herself as she lifted the sleeve of her dress to reveal the peachy colored scars that stood out from that porcelain skin, some of them were scabbed and raw, still almost fresh and as the razor blade slipped effortlessly into her hand Annora made another cut into the far too fair skin… unaware of the watchful eye peering through the keyhole.

 

-PRISON WORLD-

Well Kai had grown more than a little bored. I mean he was trapped in a world created to isolate him, yeah he’d done some cool stuff, broke into the white house, stole a 1968 Mustang Fastback, totaled a 1968 Mustang Fastback. He even managed to make a few pipe bombs and blew some shit up… even himself at one point.

But after a while it all just becomes pretty boring, finding new things to do on the same day… over and over and over…

One of his few better pastimes was thankfully his little Annie-Bee, he would sit and watch her read books, and it would usually be an old broken novel or studying the pages of some spell book. She’d also taken to those language tapes. 

Watching her was his only tether to the real world, his only escape from his endless seclusion. It made him smile, how hard she was trying to find him, how she wouldn’t speak a word to anyone around her but would spend hours jabbering to herself… almost as if she knew he was there. 

After that night in the bathroom, the meteor shower and bloodshed I suppose you could say it was kind of a turning point for his little Bee. She saw him, just for a moment, she saw him and all it took was the death of another. She was still the same girl, but something about her had grown harder, darker… she held herself with a wicked confidence; it almost reminded him of himself. 

The first time it happened Kai wasn’t sure what to make of it; she was just ten years old at the time, ten years old and sat with tears streaming down her face as she made the very first cut into her tender young flesh. She let out a wince followed by a sigh of relief when it was done… he just didn’t get it.

Hurting others he understood, it was empowering, entertaining, something to pass the time and sometimes even necessary; but hurting yourself? That was a foreign concept to him. 

But never mind, her behavior wasn’t to concerning, she didn’t have any intention on killing herself and she was still playing her part in trying to actually get him out of that dammed place. So yes he didn’t like it, but there’s not like there was anything he could actually do about it anyway. I think that’s what bothered him most, his helplessness.  
If he had been there he would have grabbed her and shook her, smashed her head against a wall and screamed at her ‘do you like that huh? No, then knock it off!. ’. She was hurting herself and he just didn’t understand why… why it made him so angry, why it affected him so much. 

-Real World-

Annora had been sat in her room, listening to her Latin language tapes when her bedroom door flew open, Henry, one of the kindred walked into the room with a large cardboard box in his hands. He placed it unceremoniously onto the bed but never met the redhead’s eyes as she moved over to examine its content. 

She pulled out a few dresses, vanilla fudge, soda, a large handful of books and CD’s, new candles but not the thing she was looking for… her frail seeming hands clutched at the corners of the box, her sharp nails piercing the cardboard and before she could look up Henry stuttered “um, it’ll be here… next week… they found it. J-just have to-to get it.”  
If she was anyone else Henry would have wiped her, beaten her into her place, however the long haired brunette boy had never been cruel to her, the other kindred knew her power, tolerated her anger and such… Henry however seemed more than that, yes the boy was obviously scared of her, but he always volunteered to bring her, her things during the weekly drop offs and sometimes he would sneak her extra desert and such… Annora thought the boy might actually have a thing for her, but her paranoia won out.

He would use her, like Lou had, like the Parker's… she didn’t have the luxury of trust.

“I, um… also got you some extra of that candy you like… the fudge?” his green brown eyes finally meeting her own, the way he looked at her reminded the redhead of those sitcoms Eloise and Josette used to watch. 

She preferred Ricki Lake.

The boy left with little else said, not that Annora’s voice was heard even once. Without warning a head popped around the frame of her door, it was the blue eyed girl with the shaved head… 

‘Why the hell is she in my room?’

She looked up sheepishly, her gaze jittering around the room nervously before swallowing back the heavy lump in her throat “hey, um hey told me to um…Dinner… it’s dinner.”

Annora didn’t pay the girl much mind as she turned to put away her new supplies, expecting the new comer to just leave, but she didn’t. Instead the boyish girl stood there holding a fist in her other hand and gnawing at the inside of her cheek. She watched as the redhead strolled around the room, casually putting things away and ignoring her “I… um, I’m Kitty. Stupid name right? It’s short for Kathleen, so I kind of got the choice between old lady and stupid little girl. Not the best choice I know.”

Suddenly Kitty feel’s an invisible sling shooting her from the room, making her hit the facing wall hard and fall to the floor with a rub of her half shaved head. She looked up just in time to see the door she was forced from close with a shuttering slam. She stared at it for a second before shaking her head, groaning angrily as she stood and wiped away any of the dirt “geesh, sorry!”

A short while later at dinner Annora grabbed her plate with a lick of her lips, it was a Leek and potato broth tonight with those buttered bread rolls she liked, this was one of the meals she actually liked in the god forsaken place. 

Oh and was that toffee pudding she saw?

She lined up along with the other loons and slowly shuffled up for her food, she noticed that girl again, Kitty, nearer to the front for a second. In another life she’d have felt bad for magically forcing her out of the room. Not now though. 

It was easier to actually show the new girl Annora wasn’t interested in her or anything she had to offer. So she didn’t plan on feeling guilty, in fact her numbness was almost overpowering…

Maybe that was why she cut herself. To kill the emptiness, or maybe it was to feel more than nothing, maybe to prove to herself she was still alive, that she could survive… maybe she missed the pain of being siphoned, maybe she liked watching the blade bite into her skin and the pretty red leak out just so she could watch it crust and heal and leave a mark she always felt inside; finally able to be seen on the surface.

Honestly she wasn’t sure why, she just knew somehow it made it better, that the physical pain seemed to drown out the rest of it, the sea of hurt that was her whole life… or maybe she was just messed up.

She didn’t eat with the others; instead our little redheaded witch chose to sit outside the locked door she had been channeling these past years. It was strange but she almost felt safe there, almost because come on she wasn’t an idiot. Sometimes though, every now and again she was sure she could hear things, a soft famine voice whispering in her ear… not pushing her or hurting her, it would tell her about spells, things to check and look up and almost give her a sense of warmth she’d missed for so long. 

Then again sometimes she also swore she could hear Kai as well, hear him swearing in frustration, laughing at her when she got mad, even feel his eyes on her… it both killed and soothed her.

Yep, she was finally going insane;

Dowager- 1

Annora-0

“No Don’t!” a voice cried through the halls and normally Annora would ignore it, like the others passing by the room at the end of the old hall.   
Some reason a voice whispered in her ear, not the stranger’s or Kai’s, her own telling her to follow her that terrified voice that sounded so similar to her own once upon a time. 

Annora came to the door frame completely unnoticed, peaking over the splintering wood to witness a girl… the new one, Kitty, being shoved hard into the yellow stained mattress, her baggy shirt torn to reveal the plain white cotton of her bra and the raised, smooth, burn scars littering across her stomach and chest. 

She didn’t know the man, had seen him around, seen him looking at her with a look she hadn’t understood for a long time. 

Lust; not that he dared touch her. After all she was the supreme Annora Grove… and most people just didn’t have the balls.

In that moment as she watched the 40-something witch groping and crawling all over the young girl it made Annora’s blood boil, yes she was devoted to a man who butchered a decent percentage of his own family, had murdered and maimed with glee… but this was a very different breed of monster. 

This could have easily been her. 

“Hu-hum” Annora cleared her throat with a simple stride into the room.

Fear-wide eyes locked onto her, but Kitty didn’t move, didn’t even flinch and just stayed frozen beneath him as he mumbled from between her breast “Fuck off!”

Blood pooled into Annora’s mouth as she bit into the side of her cheek, never taking her eyes off the disgusting scene before her “Ah, what the fuck?”

The would-be rapist screamed as he was hoisted into the air without warming, Kitty scurried over to the corner of the room like a scared rabbit, holding her knees close to try and cover exposed flesh of her scared torso. That was the first time Annora noticed the deep gash along Kitty’s supple throat, she’d live but it would scar… so many scars.

“A-Annora?” the man questioned, fear lining his gritty voice.

The redhead’s gaze snapped to him with sheer rage “Annora, hey we- we haven’t met… we were just messing around. T-that’s all.”

Her head slowly tilted to the side, almost examining him like a rabid dog would its prey. He could see her lack of belief on as her hand raised, open palm, fingers stretched out threateningly as she continued to hold him effortlessly in mid-air. Her hand slowly began to close; coursing him to clutch at his chest… a slow, circular dribble of blood forming on his grimy shirt as our vengeful witch slowly pulled his heart from his chest.

Kitty looked at the scene before her with wide eyes, unsure of what she was actually seeing… since she’d arrived earlier that weak she’d seen the red haired girl stroll around like she owned the place, heard the whispers of the other prisoner’s, how this one girl protected herself and struck a deal with the kindred. 

Earlier, yeah, she’d gone to her for protection, after all the best thing to do in a new school was make friends with the biggest kid on the yard… the one no one messed with.   
Now though… Kitty saw this girl wasn’t just some crackpot witch, she was fucking inexplicable. Kitty wondered if she even knew her eyes had changed to a bright white hum.   
She didn’t, she never really knew. So as Annora stood glaring at the man, watching him make stuttering, inexplicable excuses a crinkled frown fell on her face, her free hand that wasn’t slowly tearing this man’s heart from his chest raised to her lips with a single finger, her ruby lips pouting slightly “sshh.”

A slow dark smile crept to her sweet face, just as blood spluttered from his mouth with a curtailing scream Annora twisted her hand into a fist; His body dropping to a heap on the old wooden floor, heart left upside down and half hanging out of his blood soaked shirt.

Annora looked at him for a moment… the second life she took, and wondered why there were so many awful people in the world. So many people she had to endure the sight of everyday. She wondered what Kai would think, already knowing he’d smile at her double murder with a proud gaze. She could almost feel him there, watching her, tenderly stroking her crimson curls and whispering approving words in his silk voice down her ear… she could smell him, pork grinds and fabric softener, if she closed her eyes she could almost pretend… almost.

It was only the heavy panting breathes of the frail creature in the corner that ripped her from her half dream state. Annora looked over at the mouse like creature huddled in the corner. Kitty, she was that girl once, alone and afraid. The redhead hadn’t even realized her feet were moving until she had already stepped over the corpse at her feet.

A few steps in and she was kneeling before the shaking girl, examining her piecing and short, shaved hair before her gaze flittered to the burn marks across her stomach. With a heavy down cast sigh Annora shrugged off her pink cardigan to wrap it around the poor girl before her. Kitty’s blue eyes filled with wonder and fear and question, this girl who earlier had cast her aside, literally, had come to her rescue… they shared a long glance of mutual comprehension, two lost girls hurt and cast aside in a cruel and unforgiving world.

Yeah, safe to say they understood each other.

“What the hell is this?” 

Both girls turned to see Henry and a few other Kindred’s gathered near the door, staring between them and the body. Annora’s nibble fingers moved to button her cardigan closed around Kitty, making sure to protect the girl’s modesty and dignity, before offering the weeping girl a small firm nod and heading over to leave the room, stopping only when the long haired boy gently reached for her but didn’t dare touch the girl… 

“Annora?”

His voice was laced with concern as his eyes met hers, for the first time Henry saw something there… something soft and warm. It lasted only a moment with a glance back at the new girl before the fire and brimstone set back in and she walked out with her head held high.

Henry took a look at the new girl; she was nothing special, she was nothing… so why had Annora saved her?  
Across the room however Kai sat on the worn, shaky dresser, invisible to their eye and with a hundred watt smile on his lips as he kicked his feet, watching Annora leave the room and almost giggled with glee “that’s my girl!”


	12. Chapter 12

It’s so dark, so dark and cold and Annora can hear her heart racing in her ears. The damp soil making her bare feet sink deeper into the ground with each step. There’s tree’s, not that that she can see them with the pitch black surround her but she can feel them, feel her hands graze against the rough bark and brushing leaves against her skin as she feels her way around in the endless darkness. 

From the far corner of her eye she could see a dull light in the distance. Annora took a step towards the light when course branch like fingers tried to drag her back but instead forced her to run as fast as her feet would carry the girl. She ran to the light the only light in all the darkness she’d wondered through for so long. 

It got brighter and brighter until the soggy ground made her slide the last few feet. It was fire, just a campfire and there sat on an old log with half a mouth full of food and dark eyes was him… Malachi Parker.

“Hey Annie-Bee, your late.” He smiled with his head popping around the fire.

A lump caught in her throat and she couldn’t breathe, barely whisper “Kai?”

He chuckled and spun around theatrically “the one and only.”

He strolled over to her, the flames of the fire highlighting the deep blue of his eyes that would swallow her whole. His knuckles lightly brushed her cheek with his head tilting ever so slightly “hey now, what’s upsetting my girl, hum?”

Annora looked back into the darkness she’d just escaped before glancing back to Kai with a mild frown “I… I don’t remember.”

It was true, she couldn’t remember being out there, why she had ran; only that she was here, in the light with him.

“Then cheer the hell up, your killing my happy over here.” Kai laughed with a kiss of her brow before walking back to cooler and snacks near his seat on the log “now how about a Coke? Maybe some skittles?”

He shook the bag at her with a playful pout, forcing a laugh from the little redhead. However her laugh was followed by a strike of lightning causing Annora to scream as she finally saw the tree’s she’d been running though for so long, miles of broken, burned, bloodied bodies hanging from the high branches . 

She saw their faces, Gretchen, Joey… she knew them, but didn’t know them all. How could she, there was so many. 

So many…

“Hey now sshh…” she hadn’t realized in her horrified panic that her knees had given way, that at some point Kai had moved to cradle her in his arms and stroke her hair. 

She couldn’t move, couldn’t even attempt to try as she was forced to nuzzle close into his shirt. Breathing a deep breath of his shirt a mumble escaped her “why?”

He cupped her plumb cheeks and forced her gaze to meet his, stroking back a stray scarlet curl, his expression seemed unsure, of the question or his reason Annora didn’t know. 

“It’s just what monsters do.” He shrugged lightly with a tug of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

With another flash of lightning she saw it, the pulled layer of scars stretching and folding over his broken face so you could see only one of the hellfire red eyes, the bloodied gashes that forced his smile wide and teeth exposed, all jagged and gleaming. A monster, it was a monsters face from a nightmare she never dreamed.

With the flash of light the monster faded away and left the dark sparkling blue eyes she knew so well and that toothy smirk that made her heart jump. She hadn’t screamed, hadn’t tried to scurry and kick away. Instead she sat still in his arms, lacing her pale fingers with his own long digits.

She felt the vibration of his chest as he laughed softly and laid a kiss into her hair before moving to pull her to her feet, twirling her around in a dance like fashion, he dropped her hand as she spun to a stop, smiling down to her almost adoringly “there’s my girl…”

She smiled back at him only to feel her heart drop into the deepest abyss. Because Kai wasn’t smiling at her anymore, no instead he was spluttering blood as a large dagger pushed through his chest from his back, he fell to his knees as she screamed and ran to his side… but it was too late.

The shadow holding the blade that killed the boy in the sobbing girl arms stepped into the light with a snarl as they swung blade at Annora “Evil, disguising monsters!”

“NO!”

The scream echoed back to her from the wall of her room, her room, in dowager…. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage with such force she thought it may break through. Once she was aware enough to realize where she actually was Annora couldn’t help but sob… the nightmare was nothing new, nothing that hadn’t clawed at her before. She woke up screaming more often than not.

When her bedroom door flew open was when he jumped back, staring at the girl in her doorway, messy shaved head, heavy circles under her eyes, baggy shirt and sweats hanging off her as her breath heaved as though she’d run a marathon (or more accurately from her bedroom down stairs near the kitchen)

“I heard you scream.” Kitty didn’t dare come closer, just stood there, her eyes darting over the redhead’s form as she clutched at the moth eaten sheets, the tears staining her cheeks. 

Annora realized how she must look and quickly wiped her cheeks clean and straightened her back. Kitty closed the door behind her as she stepped into the room. Not approaching the bed but simply passing it by, as well as the unlit shine and made her way to the corner were a old sleeping bag and worn pillow were neatly folded. 

She didn’t bother to force the girl to get the fuck out like she had the first time, only to find said girl camped outside her door the next morning with a big knife and a quilt.  
After the first time Kitty didn’t bother knocking, instead she’d camp outside the door. It put Annora on edge, she felt kind of bad for the girl having to sleep on that hard dirty floor and she didn’t understand why. Kitty hadn’t really bothered with Annora besides trying to thank her after killing her would-be-rapist, that and the whole camping outside her room thing. 

As the weeks passed Annora decided that if the stupid thing was going to sleep on the cold hard floor during the nights Annora’s screamed echoed through each room she might as well be somewhat comfortable. So one night after supper Kitty was shocked to have Henry shove a sleeping bag at her, his eyes scanning over the girl with a nasty shrug “I just don’t get it…” before walking back to his normal tasks of the day. 

Somewhere along the line she’d gone from the hall to the door way, then to the far corner underneath the boarded window. Annora had almost gotten used to it, her little night watcher. 

Yeah, things got weird.

*PRISON WORLD*

Kai watched her scream, wondered what she was dreaming about, he couldn’t remember the last time he dreamt, could he even dream in that place?  
Anyway he was around, and she was getting worse… the cutting was getting more frequent, the nightmares closer together and half the time he felt like he was losing his mind.

He’d died four times since he got stuck in that hellhole.

Four times:

The first was him burning alive in the family vault; Accident.

The second was when he blew himself up learning how to make pipe bombs; Accident.

The third was when he was teaching himself how to fly a plane and crashed before even getting off the runway; Accident.

The fourth time… well he had been sat in some rich guy’s house pilfering through his Armani suites when he found a bunch of half empty pill bottles in the bathroom, he spent a few minutes reading over the names he couldn’t for the life of him pronounce. In all honesty he was tired, tried of just wondering around, of not being able to touch other person, to caress sweet kisses of a supple cheek or to feel the bones of someone’s neck snap under his long fingers, he missed talking to people. More accurately he missed being herd, he hated being alone… it wasn’t planned, but that night as he drank down three, ten thousand dollar bottles of wine, hating his crappy existence in the never ending day and in his drunken haze he remembered those pills and one thought crossed his mind. 

Fuck it!

Afterword’s with the mix of alcohol and prescription drugs his head was more than a little dizzy, his stomach felt like Freddy Kruger was rummaging around in there, the room began to spin as he fell hard on his back into the fur rug, gagging as bile climbed up his throat, it burned, he couldn’t breathe. The pain was sizzling every nerve ending as he choked on his own vomit and black dots fogged over the blurring image of the ceiling… then nothing.

Until he woke up coughing and gasping with cooled and dry sick stuck around his mouth.

It was pretty disgusting.

That was the first time… but not the last.

Kai had almost stopped eating completely, stopped doing much of anything except watching Annora and truthfully, though he’d never admit it, it was all because ruthless, cold Malachi Parker was worried.

Yes she was devious, impulsive and stubborn but she had a light, a light of good and kindness that had somehow sucked Kai in, she let him in, and now it seemed darkness was taking her over to the point that he hardly recognized the girl he stared at from his unknown seat at her bedside. 

He’d never admit that ache in his chest was real, never admit that watching all that she was fade away into the dark was eating away at him. 

Not just because he didn’t want to admit he genuinely cared for the girl but also for the fact that even after all that time he still didn’t understand what it was and that scared the shit out of him. 

So Kai watched her, watched her and saw the smallest crack in her steal armor, he saw a glimmer of who she was and how she could be saved. Saved from becoming like him (not that he didn’t think he was totally awesome but two of him might break the universe in half.) …The girl with that stupid haircut and awful clothes… Kitty.

\-----Real World------

The days passed the same; Annora was sat on the floor against the end of her bed in reading eagerly though an old, rare wiccan text on ‘Temporal Distortion’ while listening to some music, it helped her think, work… not that she did much else.

*tap* *tap* came from her door and she looked around to find Henry smiling down at her “hard at work I see.”

Annora rolled her eyes at the boy and simply carried on reading. Henry didn’t take much offence to her silence but instead took a step inside “so I saw your list for this week, black sweats and a Sex Pistols t-shirt, not your usual style.”

Annora didn’t even flinch when Henry against the wall, a knee pulled up as his eyes scanned over her, she was wearing a navy summer dress with white flowers, her hair falling in crimson waves over her doll like face; he thought she was beautiful, had done since the first time she snarled in his general direction.

Beautiful.

Strong.

Smart.

Loyal.

He envied that stupid photo that stood center of her shine, so much so he almost hated the stranger. 

He watched her merely shrug at his comment and laughed, tilting his head to rest on the pink sheer sheet covering the crumbling drywall. 

His gaze on her never faltered and his thick brows knitted together as he asked “why her?”

Annora shot him a simple gaze that spoke volumes meaning ‘what are you talking about?’

“Come on Annora, this girl’s been hanging around since that day Marcus tried to rape her, I’m not saying the bastard didn’t have it coming or anything like that. I just want to know why you… care for her.” Henry inched ever so closer.

Annora scoffed and shook her head, as though he spoke utter nonsense. Yes she allowed the girl to linger, get her a few new things out of pity but nothing more. Henry however didn’t believe her for a second “come on don’t give me that crap, I’ve been around since the day you got here and after that blonde one you shredded you’ve never even shown so much as a smile to anyone here but now, now this girl… I just want to know why her? Why is she so special?”

It was silent for a long moment and until a note book flew across the room with a pink felt-tip and without much thought Annora scribbled away, balling up the torn off paper and throwing it at Henry before pushing him out of the door with a flick of her wrist. As the door slammed in his face, something he was used to after years of attempting to get close to the redheaded girl , his course hands quickly un-crumpled the paper that read simply ‘she’s nothing’

Henry sighed angrily and threw the paper to the floor, she was lying he knew this stupid girl actually meant something to Annora and he hated her for it. However he wasn’t as alone in the hallway as he believed, Kai saw the whole interaction, saw the sloppy hand writing of his adoptive sister and smirked cruelly understanding what that idiot boy couldn’t, that maybe even Annora didn’t understand. 

Kitty was nothing, just a meaningless girl cast aside for some sin or another, no one cared, no one… just like Annora. 

A plan formed in the sociopath’s twisted mind at the knowledge that this girl reminded his girl of who she was, she was weak, nothing, but still had a light. 

He could work with that.

Kitty was in the kitchen, restocking the medical supplies under the watchful eye of Diana, or as Kitty mentally nicknamed her the Greasy-haired-Scarface. She did that, nicknamed them all because learning names of people she had no actual social interaction with seemed a bit fruitless to her. 

The only name she actually knew in that place besides her own was Annora’s. ever since that day that she… well ever since then Kitty felt indebted to the redhead, she saved her, she didn’t have to, didn’t expect her to but she did, after that Kitty had promised herself she would return the favor. After all her father always said kindness should be repaid, seemed only fair.

She started going to her room because he thought maybe she was being attacked, well the first time anyway, after that he thought she should go just to be sure… sometimes she’d just watch Annora, in plain sight or through keyholes, she knew she was cutting herself, that she cried herself to sleep and only ever seemed to mutter a word when she was locked away in her room, whispering to that creepy shine she’d built. She knew she liked fudge and wasn’t a chocolate fan, had a thing for the color yellow. 

Kitty wasn’t foolish, she heard the whispers, how powerful and dangerous Annora was. I mean come on she killed a guy right in front of her for fucks sake. That didn’t seem to dull the twinge in her chest when she saw the scars lining the redheads thigh for the first time, heard her crying out and screaming in her sleep. 

Everyone in that place was scared of her, hell even she was, but she didn’t just see this great power, she was just a girl… like her. 

Alone. 

Kitty ran a hand through the stubble side of her head, this place was fucking exhausting. Then there was the Scarface-girl-haired-boy who was always hanging around Annora. He gave Kitty death glares and lots of creepy feelings, like he wanted to melt her face or some crazy shit. 

Fuck, this place gave her a fucking migraine!

A few days passed, Annora still cut and researched, Kitty still worked and lingered and Henry still stalked and moped. He even took to watching them from the dark corners of the house like some real creeper. 

Annora walked into the living room to find Kitty sat in front of the television, really she wasn’t sure what she was doing in there, she’d been fine sat in her room and learning Latin but something had been niggling at her all day to check on the strange boyish girl. Little did she know that niggling feeling was Kai whispering in her ear, then screaming at her when she just sat there for four hours.

So there she was, the redhead fidgeted slightly stood behind the girl, Kitty however seemed very much at ease, sat Buda style and eating some sugary cereal dry and straight out of the box. After a long moment of Annora just staring at the screen where some dainty blonde girl used a stick to turn a bumpy faced guy to dust Kitty spoke over her shoulder, eyes never leaving the screen “you can sit down you know.”

And Annora did, took a seat beside the girl just in curiosity as to what was happening on the screen. Sensing her confusion and curiosity the dark haired girl mumbled around a mouth full of empty calories “that’s Buffy, she’s this vampire slayer, killing evil and shit is kind of her job but she’s still in high school and falling for a vamp, deep shit.”

As Kitty tilted the half eaten box of cereal to the redhead Annora sheepishly took the offering and turned her attention back to the screen. It had been so long since she watched TV, took a moment, just relaxed for half a second. she was so busy trying to bring Kai home, she just hadn’t the time or the urge; it felt strange, she almost forgot what it was to laugh as a small giggle escaped her when some guy called Xander made a stupid joke. 

Both girls sat unaware of the eyes watching them, Henry was seething while Kai sat sipping on a Zima with a smirk. This was necessary, yeah her devotion was a credit to the girl, but she was going to burn out then she’d be useless, she needed something else beside’s Kai to focus on; not for too long of cause. 

He needed her in her right mind was all; not like he actually cared that she was killing herself for his sake. No, that’s insane nonsense.

It progressed slowly, those short days of watching TV turning into the two Witches eating supper together. Kitty would even sit in Annora’s room as she researched and the music drowned out the noise from the rest of the house and read one of the redhead’s old novels. That is until she got more than a little bored of the old book and decided to crank the music and forced Annora to her feet despite her defiant glare to dance with the tomboy.

Annora didn’t know what was happening as she joined in the dance with a roll of her eyes, she was spending more and more time with the girl, had even helped her shave down the sides of her head. This was new and she wasn’t even sure what it was, her whole life had revolved around the knowledge that it was her and Kai against the world.   
Then there was Kitty; this strange girl who snubbed her music tastes and called her books boring, who would sit in silence for hours with her not asking her for anything but her presence or a smile; now that was something Kitty liked to do, a game almost, trying to get Annora to laugh or smile. She always seemed so proud of herself after.   
“Now what are you smiling about?” Henry asked from the crack of the door, watching her in the bathroom mirror. His voice was sweet and almost teasing, a coy smile on his scared face.

Annora met his gaze in the mirror with a hard stare as she continued trying to brush her damp hair, tightening her nightgown ever so slightly around her growing curves. Her smile had fallen away at the presence of the Kindred boy; it was a sign of weakness, such a silly thing. 

“You know I was wrong, I admit it, I thought you were this unstoppable force. Looking for that guy, my god your determination, all that work… for what? For you and little miss freak show to sit around braiding each other’s hair, I mean what’s left of hers anyway.” 

For the first time since he entered the room Annora’s baby blues looked over to the boy with seething rage. How dare he question her commitment; Kai was her world and bringing him home was her only concern she just… took a second, some free time. That’s all.

At her angry glare Henry raised his hands in sign of surrender as he left the room, knowing he was on the brink of her magically forcing him out or blowing up his head, one or other “right, not my business, I just always thought he mattered more than some skinny emo… that’s all.”

The door shut behind him with an echoing creek of the rusty hinges. Leaving Annora with nothing but her reflection and her invisible god, Kai groaned with a wheezing chuckle at the door as he said to himself “you’re a piece of work, I like you.”

Later that night Annora sat before her shine as someone tried to push against the locked door “Hey Red, it’s me; open up.”

Kitty’s soft yet gruff voice filled the room, Annora sat with her jaw clenched tight and screwing her eyes tightly shut. Somehow Kitty made her feel calm, stupid thing really, she   
wondered what it meant, why it scared her, what her angle was. She shouldn’t be wasting time on such trivial things; she should be working on bringing her brother home. 

She needed to get back on track, she needed to work… she needed Kai.

“Red?” 

Slipping a pre-made note under the door Annora scooted back against the bed and waited for the inevitable. The note was simple and precise, no use beating around the bush; it just told her to stay away, simple as that. “What? Wait… Annora what the fuck is this? What did I do? Red? Come on, whatever it was I’m sorry. Please just talk to me, ok maybe not talk but… what did I do, I have a right to know. I mean thought, I know that we… I thought we were… you know what forget it! Fuck you! Fuck this shit. I’m outta here!”

Annora could hear the pain and confusion in Kitty’s angry voice, silly thing getting attached to someone like Annora was never going to end well, she should have known better. 

This was the best thing; she had so much work to do and couldn’t afford to be distracted by some pathetic little girl. 

But if all that was true then why was she curled up on the floor with an ocean of tears she couldn’t control, why did her heart hurt at the sound of Kitty’s pained voice, why did her   
hand reach out for her trusty razor with the need to slice at the scarred flesh. Why did it hurt so much?

Kai, ever the observer sat cross legged on the bed, picking at his nails as he watched his little redhead carve at her thigh. He tilted his head with a click of his tongue and his nostrils flaring, trying to ignore the ache in his chest at the sight before him and instead focused on the rage side of things “well now, that’ just not playing fair.”

-PRISON WORLD-

Kai spent the next few hours after that collecting every magical item he could find in his family home, except for his necklace of course, and siphoned the crap out of it. The magic raced through his veins, making him laugh and do a little dance “wow, I’ve seriously missed this.”

That power running through him, tugging on every nerve. For the first time in years he wasn’t so helpless and it was fucking amazing. He almost forgot why he did it for a second until he saw Annora’s toy rabbit in the pile of once magical items, he’d made it dance for her and have tea parties. Noting crazy, but it made her swoon. 

He remembered how happy she was when he’d cast that spell using her magic. Reese had called her a freak and she’d run crying up to her room, Kai cheered her up, had a tea party and set Reese’s Transformers on fire. Now that had made Annie laugh.

He remembered how soft and easy her laugh was, like nothing could ever touch her… she never laughed anymore. It was even more annoying than when she wouldn’t stop.  
So Kai had to go to plan B; a wicked smile biting at the corners of his lips “now this is going to be fun.”

-REAL WORLD-

It was late, the sun had set in the southern sky hours ago and Henry was doing his rounds, checking everyone was in their beds and not causing trouble. He was happy to see Kitty back in her own room, away from Annora. What the long haired boy didn’t know what that he was being watched, followed, by a Siphon high on magic and a vendetta in his heart while whistling the tune to Beauty and the Beast.

His Annie-Bee’s favorite. 

He fucking hated that movie.

As Henry opened the door to Kitty’s room with a twisted smile he was unaware of the creature stood behind him that muttered with his stolen power hand focused on the long haired boy “Dicio…”

Henry instantly felt his body stiffen, he tried to move back but couldn’t, not even an inch. Panic flooded through the witch as a whisper fluttered into his ear “let it out, go on you know you want to. All that pent up teenage crush angst; I mean seriously she chose her? Some little nothing witch, weak, worthless, instead of you. Let it out, you know you want to.”

The voice was like a song and without any residence Henry moved into the room with a single thought; Kill Kitty.

Kai smiled at the closed door, cracking his knuckles with a stretch of his fingers “let the games begin.”

A scream echoed though the rickety old house that’s what made Annora shoot upright; taking a long second to realize it wasn’t her that was screaming for once. There was so much shouting and noise she had no choice but to slip on her fluffy slippers and race down the hall, normally she wouldn’t care less but seriously how was she meant to sleep with that racket.

It was only as she got closer to the kitchen and realized what room it was, only as she pushed through the crowd of lunatics to see Henry, Kitty laid out beneath him, her grey shirt torn and bunched up into Henry’s fist. The girl had blood all put pouring from the deep cut on her cheek, a split lip where a large bruise was already starting to form.

The other Kindred where trying to pull the boy away, not that it worked, without a word he was slammed across the room and pinned to the boarded window, the crowed fell back in fear as Annora and her pink nighty sashayed into the center of the room. She had that look on her face, a tilt of her head as her hand raised to end the boy that had admired her from a far.

Her fingers twirled as a weak hand clasp her wrist. Beside her she found Kitty, broken and bloody and bleeding yet again, her eye was starting to swell shut but the redhead found no anger in her eyes. “Don’t do it Red.”

Annora didn’t understand, this boy had attacked her, had hurt her, why shouldn’t he die? The redhead tilted her head in utter confusion at the girl, Henry still pinned to the wall. Kitty searched her savior’s eyes for some sort of comprehension but there was none. So with a heavy sigh Kitty took Annora’s deathly hand in two on her own, her gaze never wavering “you don’t have to do this. We don’t have to be like them, please Annie; don’t let them turn you into some fucking monster.”

Monster. 

That word… a word she’d heard so often, so many times, all her life. She and Kai had been treated as such, so that’s what they became. Now though, now here stood this girl who knew the horror’s Annora could and had inflicted with the flick of her wrist, she knew how to make her smile and had never asked her for a single thing, nothing but this, to spare this boy, to be better than them.

The kind and pleading gaze in Kitty’s eyes made Annora’s heart churn in a way she had all but forgotten. The hand Kitty grasp fell to the girl’s side, Henry falling into a slump on the floor, dazed and confused about what had happened. A sigh of relief left Kitty’s broken lip as Annora moved to encircle the girl, it had been a long time since she’d hugged anyone besides her pillow. Kitty winced at the embrace what with her beaten and tender flesh but still hugged back, shocked that Annora would show her such affection. 

Her biggest shock was when a small, almost broken voice breathed into her ear “thank you.”

The kindred moved to check over and chastise Henry while the rest of the house scampered back to bed. Annora hadn’t let go of Kitty’s hand but instead led her upstairs to the safety of her room where she could fix her up and let her sleep. 

As the pair walked up the long staircase Annora could have sworn she felt him, Kai, but was unaware as he rested his hands then chin against the banister, an almost tender smile on his face. She was smiling, soft and sweet like he remembered; a sliver of that light shining back through. 

“Now there she is. You’re welcome by the way!” he shouted up after them, Annora turned for a split second, she could have sworn…

“You ok Red?” Kitty asked, not expecting anything other than the usual nod or light pull of her hand.

Annora fiddled with the golden bee still hanging from her neck and smiled down at her friend. Friend. She had a friend “I’m okay… peachy actually.”

She felt better than she had in so long. Why couldn’t she save Kai and have someone in her life, who never asked her for anything, who cared. Someone she connected with, who made her smile… a friend; a real, honest-to-god, fucking friend.

Was that really so much to ask for?


	13. Chapter 13

She was close, so close she could almost smell his shampoo, hear his laugh.

So close she could nearly breath again for the first time in almost eighteen years.

“Hey, Annora have you seen Kitty at all this morning?” a tall dark-skinned boy stopped her in the hall.

Annora smiled sweetly, the honeyed southern tone she’d picked up after all those years trapped in New Orleans dripped off her tongue “Good morning, Zach and no, not since she slinked home to get a change of clothes for work.”

The blush crept up his neck as his eyes turned away “Yeah, sorry, um, anyway could you give her this back, she left it in my camper.” He handed her a blue cardigan and bit the inside of her cheek because well, it was actually her cardigan. 

“Sure thing, I have to run.” 

“Sure, Later. Tell Kitty to call me.”

The boy was gone before she could lie to him.

She shoved the sweater into her bag and headed out into the streets of Chicago, she needed a half decent burger to get through this day.

You’re probably wondering what the hell is going on, how the hell these two ended up in Chicago and most importantly how the holy fuck they got out of Dowager.

Well, it wasn’t easy, Annora and Kitty had become inseparable since the night of Henry’s attack. Over the years that came and went Annora began to trust her friend, and eventually told her all about the boy she’d been locked away for.

Kitty to her credit had started helping Annora in any way she could, after all it wouldn’t hurt to get a fresh perspective. 

They realized that they could never get the answers while locked up in that place, especially not with the Kindred holding back certain texts and information.   
According to Henry they had been doing so for years under the order of an outside coven. 

He’d been found dead the next morning after revealing that little tidbit. His throat slashed from ear to ear and cult mark burned away.  
Annora almost cried about it.

Kitty almost laughed. 

So Annora built up her strength, channeled every ounce of magic she had and some she manged to borrow from the stranger behind the locked door and not even a week to her ninetieth birthday, her and Kitty hardly packed anything but a backpack each, Annora slipping the spell to freedom under the locked door, and in the dead of night they were gone.

It sounds simple enough except it took more than a decade to fucking achieve so yeah.

Once they got out things became difficult, back in dowager they had a roof over their heads, lukewarm beds to sleep in but in the real world all they had was each other. 

They stole and slept rough for the first few weeks, the first few nights where the worst, huddled together in doorways squeezing into a single sleeping bag and using a clocking spell to protect them from the raw night around them. They quickly decided that maybe high-end theft wasn’t something they were opposed to; knocking off the nicest stores they could find and fencing it on street corners a town or two over became easy money, easy enough to get them some crappy motel room and a hot meal every night at least.

That is until one day Annora stood outside a sandwich shop, waiting for Kitty to show up so they could move onto the next town. Kitty had headed over to the market to sell off some of the branded stuff while Annora pawned whatever jewelry they’d taken that day, using her magic to screw up the camera’s just like they did at the store. 

However, Kitty didn’t just stroll up with pockets full of cash that day, nope instead a big ass RV rolled up beside her, honking twice before Kitty finally stepped out with a proud smirk “You like?”

“Wh- Kitty what is this?”

“Our new home. Want to check it out?” 

Annora walked into the motor home with a curious caution “uh, Kitty?”

The darker haired girl was to busy showing her friend the small kitchen, opening the fridge freezer to show that the little light would come on, then taking two steps to the sofa facing a TV that was mounted on the wall beside a cream colored table booth.

“…See and the sofa even pulls out into a bed and back here there’s a bathroom with an actual fucking shower, I mean yeah you have pull closed the divider thing for privacy but hey, it’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked before. Oh, and then there’s this!”

Kitty tugged Annora’s hand through the RV and into a small room with a queen-sized bed, closets and draws built into the back wall and another TV mounted to face the bed “a real fucking bedroom, I know it’s a little small but…”

“Kitty, sweetie, not to rain on the parade but where the hell did this come from?”

A blush ran up the girl’s cheek as she bit her lip anxiously “well I was getting rid of that stuff and down the block was this motor home place… I just figured, hey, a house with wheels! What with us moving around all the time and needing a place to stay…”

“Kitty! Get to the point.”

“I checked a few of them out and might have decided to just take one.”

“You mean you stole this thing?”

“Well yeah, but I was super careful when I snaked the keys from the office and I made sure to do a little memory charm on the sales people. All we have to do is hall ass and change the plates before it wears off.”

Kitty watched her friend, trying to gage her reaction and quirked a worried brow “You mad?”

Annora’s answer was to cup Kitty’s warmed cheeks and cackle “You, my darling girl, are a god given genius” the redhead pulled her in close, arms weaving tight around her neck as she laughed “I knew there was a reason I loved you.” 

Kitty shoved her off with her own low chuckle “man you had me worried there for a second. Asshole!”

Things got easier after that, they traveled all over, spoke to witch after witch, coven after coven, and one name kept creeping up; Bennett.

Annora tracked the name back to an old and powerful coven, connections all over, but for some reason they had died out, all but one. 

Apparently, this girl liked getting mixed up in Vampire business, and they’re wasn’t a witch this side of the border that didn’t know all the havoc caused in some small Virginia town, even the exiled ones. 

Kitty and Annora dug up everything they could on the coven, until they realized they needed something more… that was why they came to Chicago in the first place. 

Annora walked into the small cafe with a mild glare to her best friend behind the counter before taking a seat on a metal stool; that was sure to hurt her butt after a few minutes “What’s with the face?”

Kitty’s hair had grown out but she still kept it short, a pixie cut I think they called it, her style had changed too, she stopped wearing boys clothes, but still went for the darker colours, black vests with cuts down the side that showed off her bra and dark jeans that hugged the figure she used to hide, her boots where the same. 

“Well for one you stole my sweater, again, and two, stop sleeping with people from the camp, because they come up to me and start asking questions then I feel like a wrongen’ for lying to them.” Kitty tried and failed not to smile at Annora’s pout.

Kitty leaned over to take her friend’s hand with her black chipped fingers and smiled “Look, I’m sorry I made things awkward with Zach… and George, and Dennis and that brunette from Atlanta.”

“You mean Claire.”

“and her too.”

They laughed for a split second, Annora giving up on trying to be angry with a sigh and fall of her shoulders “Look Kitty, you know I don’t care who you sleep with, I just don’t want to be the middle man when your giving them the brush off.”

“Your right, I’m sorry. Next camp, I promise no screwing the neighbors. When are we thinking of getting out of here anyway?”

It was a tough question, they both knew it, they’d already been in this City for longer than their usual tryst, they only stole now when they had to but long stays meant they had to keep a low profile, meaning Kitty had been working in this café for nearly two months now, Annora was working as store assistant in some boutique up town. 

This wasn’t like their usual stops.

“I um, I was thinking we do it tonight, theirs meant to be this comet ‘PANSTARRS’, so I’ll channel that to give us a little bit more back up.”

“Do we really need it? I mean come on, we’re very powerful, bad-ass witch’s; you more so but still.”

“I just don’t want to leave anything to chance.” 

Kitty could feel that uncommon sensations coming of her friend in waves, fear, worry, and weaved her fingers into the back of her neck “Hey, look at me…”

The fear was right there, right in the center of those big blue-green eyes “I won’t let anything happen to you, we do this, we’re one step closer to getting your boy back and then its done, we burn this fucking city into the substations if you want.”

Annora lips felt chapped as she licked at them, “Yeah, your right, we just… need to get it over with.”

It was almost over, Annora knew that, but still, after everything they’ve done, every ugly and bloody thing, this was proving to be the hardest. 

What is that they say… you can never go home again.

The next evening was one of the worst of Annora’s life. She couldn’t explain why she spent more than two hours picking an outfit, tweaking her makeup and messing with her hair. 

Was she trying to impress them?

Make them see she was alright?

Maybe she just wanted them to see how good she was without them. After all, their the ones who abandoned her. 

Annora finally decided on a blue polka dot skirt and a white lace shirt with a pair of matching blue pumps and white knee-high socks. Those long red curls were partially tided with a perfected bow.

She hoped she looked nice, Kitty kept telling her to stop fidgeting as they knocked on the red door. 

Strange, Annora could have sworn it was blue.

“Hello?” a dark-haired man with a tired smile answered the door.

Annora’s breath caught in her throat, she couldn’t breath and he was watching them; like he had no idea who she was at all “Um, can I help you girls with something?”

Kitty’s fingers slipped into Annora’s and the redhead found her breath again, a tear she couldn’t feel rolling down her soft snow-white cheek “Hi Daddy.”

His eyes widened over the sight of his daughter at his door step “Annora…”

“Are you going to invite us in or what?” Kitty snapped after too long had passed in her opinion.

He stepped aside, not able to take his eyes off her, his little girl.

Once they were sat in the family room Kitty was snooping at pictures and looking in draws while Annora sat still on the sofa, back straight, her fingers chipping away at the polish she’d carefully covered them in earlier. 

Her father walked into the room with a tray of tea, making it shake with the slight tremor of his hand “Do you still like honey in your tea?” 

“Annie doesn’t drink tea, gives her heartburn.” Kitty eyed him arrogantly, now stood behind Annora, her hands spread onto the sofa back.

“Oh, um maybe…”

Annora’s hand raised to silence him before he could offer her anything more “Stop, we’re fine.” 

“Oh, okay, so Annora are you going to introduce me to your friend?” 

He was clearly nervous, but the way he was talking, like she’d never been dragged from this very house kicking and screaming made her want to scream “Sure, this is my sister, Kathleen Monroe, we meet at Dowager, you remember Dowager, right Daddy? Kitty this is Stanley Grove, my father, you know, the guy that tried to slit my throat when I was four freaking years old.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember.” If looks could kill, then between the death glare from kitty and the raging anger from Annora Stanley would be as gone as the Dodo.

Annora had enough of trying to play nice, pretending this was some grand reunion. So, as her father opened his mouth to speak she stood “don’t, just don’t. I’m sure you spent all these years rehearsing some lame bullshit apology or excuses, but I don’t care. I didn’t come here for this.”

“I see, revenge then?” he tried his best to seem unmoved but the tears forming in his eyes showed otherwise.

Annora watched him and tried to bury the memories of piggybacks and bed time stories “nothing that mediocre. I need a spell from one of the family grimoires.”  
Stanley watched the two girls “A spell? You broke out of that place and came all the way here for a spell?”

“Yeah we did, and your going to give it to us.”

“What spell?”

“Diebus fatalibus” 

Stanley’s face fell as she voiced her request “you’ve got to be kidding, Annora that is a very complex and risky spell, besides no one has attempted it in decades.”

“Don’t be stupid Stan, I’m not some run of the mill baby witch floating pencils, I’m full on scary vainy Willow kind of powerful; besides you owe me.”

She watched his Adams apple bob, eyes unable to meet her own as he headed to the fire place, the wall spinning slowly to reveal an array of ancient books. While he did this   
Annora’s gaze shifted to the picture on the table she’d been trying so desperately to ignore. 

It was a family photo, not that she was in it mind, no this one showed two proud parents cuddling another little girl that couldn’t be more than six and two infant boys from behind, they looked like her, she wondered if they knew about her… their big sister.

“We should hurry before your mother gets back.” it was a warning that made Annora shiver.

Stanley stepped aside, watching as his eldest child muttered a dead language as one of the texts liberated itself the others, its pages flowing like a gale force wind was pushing them until it stopped. The book dropped to the floor, leaving one torn page hanging. Annora quickly plucked the worn parchment from the air, hey eyes scanning the page with an accomplished smile on her face.

She had it, it was almost too easy.

Then his desperate voice broke her “Annora, perhaps you could stay for dinner, you and your friend… I’m sure I could talk to Danielle, you could get to know the kids, we could get to know you. Maybe theirs a chance at us being a family again.”

Kitty watched Annora, she couldn’t see her face but the slight tremor in her shoulders wasn’t lost on the girl, she knew that bitter was chuckle was coming before Annora even did “a family… a family?” 

The windows shook lightly as she turned to meet her father’s gaze “Do you have any idea what it was like in that place? What they did to me? What I had to do just to survive? I was a little girl for fucks sake and you stand here and talk to me about family. Fuck you Stan! Do know how afraid I was to even come here, to my ‘family’ home? How many protection charms I had to evoke just to feel that we were safe? Of course not, but guess what I do have a family, alright, I have a sister who has kept me alive through the worst years of my life and a brother that gave up everything to save me because they love me, a brother, by the way, that you people stole from me. You are not my family.”  
You could see the shame, the guilt as his gaze refused to meet hers “I’m…”

“if you say you’re sorry I will rip out your tongue and feed it to you!” she was toe to toe with him now. Her fists white knuckling as her nails bit into her palm.

“I’ve seen her do worse, so yeah, I wouldn’t. Come on, Red, let’s get out of here.” Kitty reached for her best friends’ hand, tugged her away from the man that was once her hero. 

“Annora, wait!” 

“Pati” 

The redhead stopped to watch her father flail in agony on the floor, tilting her head ever so to watch the pain curse through his every vein. Annora knelt beside him, sneering with a whisper to his ear “you should have protected me, you should haven chosen me…” 

She wiped the tears from her eyes and left the house soullessly, Kitty hot on her heals “so, we’re not going to kill him? Annie?” she spared the writhing man a glance with a small salute “nice to meet you Stan.”

That night Kitty watched her friend like a hawk, she wasn’t stupid enough to ask if Annora was okay, she wasn’t, I mean who would be right? She just had to keep an eye on her, no matter how much it annoyed the other girl or how many times she claimed to be fine without being asked. 

 

Kitty had to watch out for her.

That was their thing after all.

“So, how are we doing on this thing?” Kitty mumbled around the chunk of pizza as she placed the box in the middle of the table. 

“Well the translation is pretty basic, we need a few potions, the Cypress we can get downtown, and a simple blood surge.”

Kitty snatched up the notepad Annora had translated the ingredients and instructions onto “Wait, a freaking blood surge? Annie that isn’t basic, shit this is all, the combinations…”

“I know. It’ll be okay. We can do this.” Annora rubbed the top of her best friend’s arms, offering a soft smile to reassure her. 

Kitty’s eyes darted to Annora’s, the hesitation, the fear, clear as day “Can we?” 

“Your losing faith in us now?” the redhead giggled playfully. 

“No, I just, this is so fucking dangerous.” It was natural to doubt this kind of spell, it wasn’t easy, and the risks weren’t always worth the rewards.

“That’s why I have you watching my back, right?” There it was, the tremor of her lip, the pleading voice that made the dark-haired girl remember how little Annora had ever asked for.

So, swallowing down the doubt and fear, Kitty agreed with a silent nod.

She wasn’t sure but what choice did she have. 

Kitty watched her best friend merrily prep for the spell, the spell that would show her what was to come, what she needed to trade and bargain to get her precious Kai back, a spell that came at a great price…

That night as Kitty slept she didn’t feel the warmth of Annora slipping into the cool night air. The young witch wasn’t really sure what she was doing until she was there, stood in her childhood home at the foot of her parents’ bed.

They looked so peacefully, so at ease, it reminded her of those nights she would crawl into their bed, of how much she despised them.

She’d made her decision, they took Kai away from her, now they were going to help her get him back, weather they were willing to or not.

What Annora didn’t know was she was watched, a figure stood so close behind her she should have felt it, should have felt the long fingers ghosting over her soft curls as a broad smile spoke “there’s my naughty girl, my sweet little Annie-Bee. Hum… hurry up and get me out of here!”


End file.
